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. Corruption has also been shown to lead to increased levels of poverty and violence. The literature thus tells us that “corruption kills.” 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 add to this literature by showing that increases in corruption lead to increases in health inequality. We further find that both the public sector corruption and the executive corruption components of the overall V-DEM political corruption index are harmful in terms of generating health inequality. Both male and female inequality is widened by corruption, though we find some evidence of differences in the effects of the type of corruption. Finally, we demonstrate that corruption leads to increased gaps in the length of life in rich, middle, and low incomes countries. Corruption is not just a threat to citizens of emerging and developing countries.