The impact of corruption and good governance on the economic growth of the Balkan countries

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of good governance on the economic growth in Balkan countries. In particular, we investigate the impact of corruption on the growth of GDP per capita. The results show that in some of the countries of the Balkan area such as Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, the Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey corruption is negatively correlated with GDP per capita growth. This paper also shows that corruption, in some Balkan countries, tends to decrease before joining the European Union and continues to decrease even after joining. This is due to the fact that, with EU membership, governance tends to improve and adapt more easily to EU rules. The main policy implication is that improved governance is more effective in terms of both reducing corruption and improving the growth potential of an economy and also EU integration.