Causality between income inequality and corruption in OECD countries

Whether corruption can be conducive or not to income inequality has been the focus of interest in the last decades. To the best of our knowledge, however, none has investigated the possibility that income inequality may foster corruption. In this research note, we argue that corruption may be the response of a (perceived) unfair income inequality. Analyzing 34 OECD countries during the period 1995–2011, some tests suggest that causality between corruption and income inequality is country specific. Even more, we found that corruption increases income inequality, and income inequality affects positively corruption.