Berkeley Program in Law and Economics

This paper aims to find out the connection between education and corruption. At first, the most relevant empirical and theoretical papers about how the economic theory explains corruption were reviewed. After this, using panel data regressions with a sample for 104 countries between 1997 and 2005, the effects of five education variables in the Corruption Perception Index were estimated. The results led to the conclusion that the greater the level of education, the greater the level of corruption will be. Institutional variables were used to corroborate the hypothesis that was proposed along the text: the problem of corruption is caused by bureaucratic institutions and education can not beat it.