Honest Governments Collect More

Countries with lower corruption consistently collect more tax revenue. The 4-percentage-point gap between clean and corrupt governments, controlling for income, translates to hundreds of billions in foregone public revenue.

This is not merely a statistical regularity. It reflects a fundamental institutional logic: when citizens trust that tax revenues will be spent on public goods rather than siphoned into private accounts, voluntary compliance rises. When businesses believe the playing field is level, they move from the shadow economy into the formal sector. The corruption-revenue link is self-reinforcing — and so is its absence.