ABSTRACT
Corruption makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Corrupt govern ments have less money to spend on basic services. Politicians line their own pockets with money from the Treasury, leaving less money for schools, hospit als and roads. When govern ments cannot provide basic services, people lose faith in their leaders – and are less willing to entrust them with their tax money – leaving even less money for basic services. For the rich, there are always altern at ive markets. The poor may be forced to make small payments to public offi cials and to get basic services, but often they cannot afford even meagre sums and must do without. The poor get even poorer. Corruption is part of what I have called (Uslaner 2008) an ‘inequal ity trap’:
inequal ity → low trust → corrup tion → more inequal ity
Inequality breeds corrup tion by: (1) leading ordin ary citizens to see the system as stacked against them; (2) creat ing a sense of depend ency of ordin ary citizens and a sense of pess im ism for the future, which in turn under mines the moral dictates of treat ing your neigh bours honestly; and (3) distort ing the key insti tu tions of fair ness in society, the courts, which ordin ary citizens see as their protect ors against evil-doers (Glaeser et al. 2003; You and Khagram 2005).
