Series on Corruption
Anti-corruption policies can only advance if they are supported by sustained public pressure. And such pressure can only emerge when society understands the true scale and consequences of corruption.
Over the past decades, international organisations have generated an extraordinary body of evidence on corruption and its economic, social and political consequences. Yet much of this evidence remains fragmented, contains important inconsistencies, and has scarcely been incorporated into mainstream economic and political theories and analyses.
This series pursues two objectives. First, it aims to contribute to the development of a new analytical framework that integrates the evidence produced by international organisations, resolves its main inconsistencies, and provides a better understanding of the structural transformations associated with corruption. Second, it seeks to change public perceptions of corruption by showing that it is not merely a legal or ethical issue, but a phenomenon with profound social consequences that increasingly affect people’s lives, especially in the context of digitalisation and artificial intelligence.
Without corruption, there would be no public debt
Corruption: the macroeconomic variable that has been overlooked and which invalidates economic and political theory and analysis.
Official documentation published by the United Nations, the European Union and the Eurosystem shows that corruption has acquired a macroeconomic dimension and constitutes the world’s most profitable business.
Given its scale, it is no longer possible to properly analyse economic growth, productivity, public spending or public debt without incorporating corruption as a relevant variable in economic and political analysis
The chart compares the increase in public debt and estimated corruption in the four largest economies of the European Union over a decade. Other official sources indicate that the true scale of corruption may be even greater.
