Multimodal assessment of political corruption worsening national poverty: Evidence of mediating and moderating effects from global panel data

Political corruption is one of the structural factors aggravating national poverty, on which there is a consensus. However, it remains controversial what factors constrain the causal mechanisms by which political corruption worsens national poverty. This paper analyzed this using different models with the global panel data of 117 counties from 1992 to 2017, including the instrumental variable model. The authors found that: (1) There was a significant positive correlation between political corruption and national poverty, (2) Political corruption exacerbating national poverty was constrained by primary education and the Gini index, which played a mediating role, (3) The level of foreign direct investment and public services moderated the relationship between political corruption and national poverty. Finally, the authors discussed the potential implications beyond national poverty for theory, method, and policy.