Corruption Kills Some People Faster than Others

A large literature links corruption to reduced investment in health infrastructure, inefficiencies and distortions in health systems, and poor health outcomes. Corruption also leads to poor quality buildings and infrastructure, and increased death and destruction from natural disasters. The literature thus tells us that “corruption kills” but a gap exists in terms of our understanding of the effect of corruption on health inequality. Using country level panel data on inequality in the length of life from Jorda, Niño-Zarazúa, and Tejería-Martínez (2024) and the V-DEM indicator of political corruption, we show that increases in corruption lead to increases in health inequality. These results are robust to using GMM methods to allow for endogeneity. All components of the overall V-DEM political corruption index are harmful in terms of generating health inequality when entered in the model on their own, with corruption in the legal and public sectors emerging as significant when all are included. Health inequality for men and women is increased by corruption. Finally, we demonstrate that corruption leads to increased gaps in the length of life in middle and low incomes countries, but not in high income countries. Corruption is a particular threat to citizens of emerging and developing countries.