By Vansh Muttreja
In a world where a majority of countries are suffering from corruption, it is important to study the causes of corruption and how it can be removed. There are many factors that affect corruption, and the one that this thesis focuses on is wages. The goal of this thesis is to understand the effects of wages of government officials on corruption levels in developing countries over time. The reason for looking particularly at developing countries is that corruption is higher and a bigger concern in such countries. The results of the analysis show that in order for developing countries to decrease corruption levels to those of the least 50 corrupt nations, there needs to be an increase of 422.51% in their government wages. The results are not suggestive for all developing countries because only a limited amount of developing countries were analyzed in this thesis. However, they do give us a glimpse into the negative relationship between corruption and wages.
Advisor: Edward Tower, Kent Kimbrough
