Anticorruption campaigns and the determinants of corruption in Europe

Several studies shows that corruption is a persistent phenomenon and that many anticorruption campaigns failed in the past. After a review of the literature of the determinants of the dynamic of corruption, our paper investigates the persisting of corruption phenomenon in Italy and in other countries. Econometric estimates, using statistics on crimes against the public administration at a provincial level, show that corruption campaign ‘Clean Hands’ started in Italy in 1990 has been effective to fight corruption. The main conclusion of our work is that anticorruption campaigns have permanent effects if they intervene at the same time on economic, political and cultural factors.