Corruption dynamics in democratic societies

This paper investigates the dynamics of corruption at the top (i.e., by politicians). For this purpose a dynamic, politico-economic framework is developed and analyzed. A particular feature of this investigation is an analytical characterization of the dynamic properties of the system. This allows one to interpret these properties in terms of economic and institutional parameters. As an example, the framework is applied to simulate Italian history from 1948 to today. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.