Abstract. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important factor of development in low income countries. At the same time, corruption continues to be one of the greatest obstacles to economic and social development in these countries. However, in East Africa, the study of the nature of corruption as well as its relationship with FDI is scanty in socio-economic literature. In addition, the existing literature provides controversial results. Motivated by these issues, this paper examines the effects of corruption on FDI inflows by incorporating an econometric method based on panel data from 5 East African countries over the 1996-2015 period. The paper contributes to the existing literature by modeling the relationship between corrupti...