Corruption essay for students

Corruption is an important topic because it affects every part of society. Politics, education, medicine, and business are all sectors that are affected by bribery and illegal under-table deals. Scandals involving influential individuals are published daily exposing unethical behavior for self-serving purposes. The Panama Papers revealed that a large number of highly influential individuals hid billions of dollars in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes ( Douglas Dalby, Amy Wilson-Chapman . 2017 ) . However, corruption is difficult to identify, since it comes in many different forms. Although there are many anti-corruption laws put in place to prevent this type of behavior, many politicians have found ways to avoid prosecution under these laws.
Furthermore, the introduction of cryptocurrencies has made it even more difficult to track corruption, due to the fact that they are untraceable, and so proving corruption will be impossible. This gives individuals a number of ways to act in their own self-interest without any accountability.
Theoretical approach

Before talking about the impact of corruption, mentioning the reasons behind corruption is important to know how corruption works :

1- Globalization,

“ the globalization of the economy is adding new urgency to the corruption problems ” (Elliott K. 1997 ). Globalization tends to influence developed countries more than lower developing countries, a study was inducted shows there is no leaner correlation between the level of corruption and Globalization (Ioannis Vavouras . 2011), however, the same study shows middle and high-income countries are more affected with globalization.

2- Political and economic systems

Political systems and economics which tend to be more democratic and high transparency are more likely to have less corruption, indeed the connection between the political institutions and political corruption is concerning. Allocating resources and taxation are considered to be the main income for governmental budget. In contrast, reducing tax evasion is a challenging task for governments, therefore fiscal deficit appears. Studies have concluded that the existence of corruption, in the long run, decreases tax revenues (Fjeldstad & Tungodden, 2001). Corruption is closely linked to the share of private investments and therefore decreases the rate of economic growth

3 – Historical Drivers

The historical factors can play in deciding levels of corruption in different countries, including colonial history. “ Corruption is the greatest obstacle to progress in post-communist countries “ (Rose, 2001, p. 105). By comparing post-communist countries and democratic counties an obvious correlation is accursed, for instance, North Korea got 14 out of 100 in the CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX, CPI is the best known of our tools to measure perceived levels of corruption in the public sector in 183 countries. Also, Russia which was the main part of the soviet union got 28 out of 100.
Individuals more often know corruption with an enormous amount of money, in some cases low ranked employees accept a small amount of corrupt money, and that act considered to be called “ petty corruption” ( Juraev J . 2018 ). Petty Corruption is again public interest, this unethical act has been a system for the highest corrupted counties, instead of corrupt money goes the state’s treasury, it goes to a person’s pocket.