The Incremental Effect of Education on Corruption: Evidence of Synergy from Lifelong Learning

Abstract

Education as a tool in the fight against corruption has been subject to much debate in academic and policy making circles. This note extends what we know on this nexus in a threefold manner:namely, in terms of: incremental, lifelong learning and synergy effects. Four main findings are established. First, education is a powerful tool in the fight against corruption. Second, there is evidence of an incremental effect in the transition from secondary to tertiary education. Third, lifelong learning defined as knowledge acquired during primary, secondary and tertiary education negatively affects corruption. Fourth, there is evidence of a 'synergy effect' because the impact of lifelong learning is higher than the combined effects of various educational levels. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010. Two main policy implications are derived. First, encouraging education through the tertiary level enhances the fight against corruption. Second, the drive towards a knowledge economy by means of lifelong learning has 'corruption mitigating' benefits.

Financial Globalisation Dynamic Thresholds for Financial Development: Evidence from Africa

“…First, the methodology is appropriate when the dependent variables are persistent. To the best our knowledge, for a system GMM technique to be adopted, a rule of thumb first-order autocorrelation threshold for evidence of persistence in the dependent variable is 0.800 (Asongu and Nwachukwu, 2015). As shown in Appendix 4, the following are correlations between financial variables and their corresponding lagged values:…”

Effects of Corruption on Tertiary School Enrolment in Africa

“…It is also generally accepted that more educated citizens are less tolerant of corruption (Swamy et al, 2001;Truex, 2011). Therefore, as argue Asongu and Nwachukwu (2015), education is a powerful tool in the fight against corruption. In this vein, Cheung and Chan (2008) state that as the number of people participating in tertiary education increased, the incidence of corruption occurring in the countries decreased.…”

A corrupção no Brasil: Análise da transparência sob a ótica do setor da construção civil

“…em comparação com a África, os 53 países analisados apresentaram elevados níveis de educação, que se relacionam de forma positiva com a integridade. Dessa forma, investimentos em educação tendem a reduzir, de forma gradativa, os níveis de corrupção dos países deste continente (Asongu & Nwachukwu, 2015).…”