Is corruption influenced by economic growth? Are legal institutions such as the
‘Right to Information Act (RTI) 2005’ in India effective in curbing corruption? Using
a panel dataset covering 20 Indian states for the years 2005 and 2008 we estimate
the effects of growth and law on corruption. Accounting for endogeneity, omitted
fixed factors, and other nationwide changes we find that economic growth reduces
overall corruption as well as corruption in banking, land administration, education,
electricity, and hospitals. Growth reduces bribes but has little impact on corruption
perception. In contrast the RTI Act reduces both corruption experience and
corruption perceptio
