Private-Sector Corruption : Measurement and Cultural Origins

Research on corruption has made substantial progress in recent years. Yet, most studies still treat corruption as a homogenous phenomenon. This article argues that private-sector corruption can be distinguished conceptually from public-sector corruption, which has been in the spotlight of empirical research. We introduce the first indicator of private-sector corruption covering a large cross-section of countries. We use this new indicator to extend a recent empirical study on the cultural determinants of public-sector corruption (Kong and Volkema 2016). Our results confirm that culture matters not only for corruption in the public, but also in the private sector. Our results indicate that self-serving leadership in high-income countries is associated with more corruption in both the public and the private sector. Furthermore, individualistic leadership is linked to less private-sector corruption in low-income countries