Corruption and political stability: Does the youth bulge matter?

•Relative size of the youth matters in how corruption affects the stability.•We use panel data from 1984 to 2012 for more than 100 countries.•Corruption is a destabilizing factor when youth exceeds 20% of adult population.

This study shows that the relative size of the youth bulge matters in how corruption affects the internal stability of a political system. Using panel data covering the 1984-2012 period for more than 100 countries, we find that the effect of corruption on political stability depends on the youth bulge. Corruption is a destabilizing factor for political systems when the share of the youth population in the adult population exceeds a critical level of approximately 20%. The moderating effect of the youth bulge in the stability-corruption nexus is robust, controlling for country and year fixed effects, a set of control variables that may affect internal political stability, an alternative operationalization of the youth bulge, corruption, and a dynamic panel estimation method.