THE CORRELATION BETWEEN CORRUPTION AND SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: AN APPLICATION FOR OECD COUNTRIES

Corruption is an ancient phenomenon that weakens all functions of the government, directly affects its monetary and fiscal policies, and causes permanent social and economic problems by disrupting human capital. Corruption can cause structural problems (e.g., unemployment, unfair distribution of income) to deepen, slow economic growth, weaken human development and lead to insecurity and social unrest. Statistical analysis of this concept, which is of great economic significance, was an important source of motivation for the present study. The current study aimed to categorize the nations based on corruption levels and to identify the discriminating economic variables effective in this categorization. Thus, various economic variables that affect the level of corruption in OECD countries, including Turkey, were evaluated. The 2013 data for the thirty-four countries were tested using discriminant analysis in the study