The impact of corruption on government performance: evidence from South Korea

While some studies argue that a low level of corruption in the public sector is positively associated with a high level of firm performance, few studies investigate the impact of corruption on public organizations’ performance. Does corruption decrease performance in government agencies? Using the integrity assessment dataset and the government performance evaluation dataset, this study investigates 42 central public organizations in South Korea from 2014 to 2018. This study employs a probit model, a random-effects model, and time-lagged regression to capture the impacts of corruption. The findings show that a low level of corruption within public organizations is positively associated with a high-performance level under certain conditions. This outcome shows that fighting corruption might contribute to improved organizational performance in public organizations.