This paper aims at giving a theoretical background to the, some- times observed, puzzling inverse correlation between the degree of de- centralization and economic growth. We provide evidence that there is some interaction between decentralization and corruption in ex- plaining growth. Within an...

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that spatial distance between citizens and the seat of political power reduces accountability, and in contrast with the alternative hypothesis that keeping...

We empirically investigate the relationship between corruption and growth using a firm-level data set that is unique in scale, covering almost 88,000 firms across 141 economies in 2006-2020, with wide-ranging corruption experiences. The scale and detail of our data allow us to explore the...