It takes more than transparency: An assessment of selected variables that ought to make a dent on corruption. A review on the cases of Mexico and the United States

Decades and policies come and go, and the ominous problem of corruption remains almost unaltered. Some of the most sought-after policies for corruption deterrence focus on institutional reforms aimed at assuring the right and effective access to information, reinforcing rule of law, tackling impunity, and increasing integrity standards for public servants. The aim of this dissertation is to test whether the impact of these policies over corruption is traceable at the subnational level of mexico and the united states. Seeking to accomplish this purpose, statistics measuring corruption, transparency and relevant variables are analyzed through ols regression and correlation methods. The findings point that spite of the evident benefits of transparency for democratic governance, under the methodology selected and with the ensuing subnational statistics, it is not possible to affirm that corruption is noticeable affected by transparency or integrity variables. Implications of these findings ask for a revision on the manner corruption is measured, and to devise which sort of circumstances bolster or thwart transparency´s prowess to cause a dent over corruption.