Determinants of economic corruption in the Arab countries: Dangers and remedies

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold. First to show the problems of corruption, across its definitions and to determine its different perceptions by being based on some economic theories, while stressing the specific mailmen at the origin of the spread of this practice in Arab countries. Besides, this article shows as well poverty, illiteracy, weakness of incomes, the poor governance, absence of strong institutions and State of right and democracy in general; existence of a rent economy, besides the impact of socio-cultural beliefs and practices in Arab countries, are the main reasons aggravating this blight in all this region. On the other hand, and from an empirical study based on panel data model over period 2005-2010, this article shows that really it exists a statically significant relation between the development of corruption measured by CPI as a dependent variable and the gross national income (GNI/capita), the rate of illiteracy and human development index (HDI) as independent variables. In other side, we make in this article some recommendations allowing us to fight against this phenomenon by breaking these subjacent reasons and carrying these countries so in most effort on prevention which means the reform of economic policies, institutional reforms and making incentives.