The Impact of the National Competitiveness on the Perception of Corruption

AbstractCorruption is one of the persistent problems of the societies over years and it affects the credibility of public institutions and its ambassadors in front of the citizens and of the other related countries. Around the world, all nations complain of corruption and, as it is observed in the Corruption Perception Index 2012, no country has a maximum score which shows that a country is totally clean. Corruption, as a public institutions’ manner of action, will influence and affect the economical outcomes, being materialized in the decline of the national competitiveness. This is the most frequent approach in the discussion about the correlation between these two variables. Contrary, the aim of this study is to analyze if corruption is influenced by national competitiveness and to show the nature of this influence. Analyzing the national competitiveness data from The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 and the data about corruption from Corruption Index 2012, the results reveal the existence of a strong positive connection between these two indexes, the level of national competitiveness significantly influencing the perception of corruption from a country. It is observed from the analysis that countries rated as having a small national competitiveness rate are perceived to be more corrupt than the more competitive countries. In conclusion, the standard of living, the rate of employment, the productivity, the commercial equilibrium, the national attractiveness, the ability of objective implementation, the flexibility and ability of sustaining growth which define the national competitiveness concept are direct determinants of the corruption perception