Population size and concentration of power: exploring factors of local corruption

This research aims to find out to what extent corruption at the local level is driven by the population size of municipalities and the concentration of power in one political party, two factors that have not receive sufficient attention by the literature on local corruption. I hypothesize that larger cities tend to be less corrupt (H1), and that cities where there is more concentration of political power tend to be more corrupt (H2). I use a statistical method with an objective indicator, consisting of a dataset of 160 municipalities in Spain where there were convictions for corruption and corruption related felonies that took place between 1995 and 2015. The findings show a significant relationship between the variables stated in H1 and H2, but one that runs in the opposite direction to my hypotheses. Considering my way of measuring corruption, this result could mean that in small municipalities and in municipalities with more concentration of power there are more obstacles to achieving convictions for corruption. Further research should confirm if these concealed relationships between institutional factors and the efficacy of punishing corruption do indeed exist.