Abstract:
This study explores the causes of corruption in 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 1996 to 2013. The
sources of corruption are grouped into three main thematic areas – historical roots, contemporary causes
and institutional causes to make way for subjective and objective measures. The subjective measures allow
for assessment of the effectiveness of anticorruption policies. Using pooled OLS, fixed-effect and
instrumental-variable approaches, and focusing on the perceived level of corruption as the dependent
variable, we find that ethnic diversity, resource abundance and educational attainment are markedly less
associated with corruption. In contrast, wage levels of bureaucrats and anticorruption measures based on
government effectiveness and regulatory quality breed substantial corruption. Press freedom is found to be
variedly associated with corruption. On the basis of these findings, we recommend that the fight against
corruption on the continent needs to be reinvented through qualitative and assertive institutional reforms.
Anticorruption policy decisions should focus on existing educational systems as a conduit for intensifying
awareness of the devastating effect of corruption on sustainable national development.
Key words: corruption, sustainable development (SD), institutional quality, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA),
governance
