Corruption continues to be a problem, while anti-corruption reforms have stalled. Although much work has been done on the causes and consequences of corruption they are yet to lead to significant reductions in corruption around the world. In response to such findings, I suggest disaggregating corruption and acknowledging that grand and petty corruption are not only different in terms of their level, but are substantively different in terms of their nature, causes and impact. The types of corruption have different negative effects and are remedied by different mechanisms. This dissertation makes theoretical, empirical and practical contributions to the field of comparative politics. I incorporate rational choice perspective to explain the differences between grand and petty corruption. I also develop new measures of grand and petty corruption and construct a panel dataset. The second chapter of this dissertation explains the differences between grand and petty corruption and introduces the dataset. The subsequent chapters apply the typology to the problems of democratic and economic development. In particular, I show their substantive differences in the analysis whether improvements in democratic institutions help reduce corruption or not. Grand corruption remains resilient even in more democratic countries; however, petty corruption can be almost eliminated. Then, to address the substantive differences, I employ the typology of corruption to the question whether democracy is a useful tool to reduce corruption. Next, I analyze which type of corruption is more detrimental for economic development and what can be done to ameliorate the harm. Grand corruption is more harmful, however predictability of corruption can work as a constraining factor in certain contexts. The final chapter concludes with the summary of the findings, limitations, and suggestions for future research, which include causal analysis of anti-corruption reforms given the differences in approaches to grand and petty corruption. Ultimately, knowing the nature of corruption and the contexts within which it operates is instrumental for planning the reforms and succeeding.

The main purpose of this essay is to examine the effect of budget transparency on petty and grand corruption. To highlight the differences between the two measurements of corruption, and their relationship with budget transparency, the study will also make a comparison to a broader measurement of corruption. The research question for this essay is: Does budget transparency affect grand and petty corruption differently? Regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between budget transparency and corruption. The regressions are based on cross-section data from close to a hundred countries from all regions of the world. It is widely recognised that corruption is a difficult concept to measure. However, the study does find some interesting results. The initial bivariate regressions indicate that budget transparency is associated with lower levels of both petty and grand corruption, these are however not statistically significant. When controlling for democracy the coefficient for budget transparency is statistically significant for grand corruption, but not for petty corruption. The results also indicate that budget transparency generally has a stronger negative effect on grand corruption compared to petty corruption.

Corruption has gained attention around the world as a prominent issue. This is because corruption has greatly affected several countries. Following the exploration of various definitions and types of corruption, this thesis focuses on two efforts to rein in “grand corruption”, also known as executive corruption. The thesis is informed by existing theories of corruption as well as anti-corruption agencies and then situates Peru’s experience with corruption in its theoretical context and its broader Latin American context. This work conducts a comparative analysis and follows a process-tracing approach to examine and evaluate Peru’s recent anti-corruption agencies and their effectiveness in holding politically powerful people to account. An analysis is made regarding the efforts of two presidents who claimed to be committed to battling corruption; however, each had different motivations and operated under different circumstances. These differences are showcased in the following influential pillars: institutional design, funding, and oversight within the National Anti-Corruption Commission (CNA) and the Superior Court of Justice Specialized in Organized Crime and Corruption (CSJ).

[pt] A corrupção em negócios internacionais é um problema que vem merecendo crescente interesse na academia, e o combate à grande corrupção é um desafio a ser encampado por governos e instituições. Esta tese utiliza como unidades de análise companhias multinacionais brasileiras, da indústria da construção, investigadas na Operação Lava Jato da Polícia Federal. Adotou-se uma perspectiva teórica integrativa das teorias institucional e da agência. Com relação à teoria institucional era esperado que as multinacionais reagiriam frente à exposição pública de modo a manter sua legitimidade e recuperar sua reputação. Dentro da perspectiva da teoria da agência, a revisão de literatura apontava que as empresas buscam controlar seus agentes para evitar a prática da corrupção. Assim, por meio desta pesquisa buscouse identificar mudanças no conteúdo dos documentos institucionais no que se refere à prevenção e ao combate à grande corrupção, antes e durante a operação Lava Jato, por meio da análise de conteúdo. Utilizou-se o software Atlas.ti como ferramenta para busca de termos e citações nos documentos obtidos nos websites das firmas. O intervalo de tempo analisado foi de 2012 a 2019. Observou-se mudança significativa na prevalência de termos após 2014, ano de publicação da Lei Anticorrupção e da deflagração da Operação Lava Jato. / [en] Corruption in international business is a problem that has attracted increased interest from academicians. Fighting the great corruption is a challenge to be taken up by governments and institutions. This thesis uses as units of analysis Brazilian multinational companies from the construction industry, investigated in the Federal Police s Lava Jato Operation. The study adopts an integrative theoretical perspective of institutional theory and agency theory. Regarding institutional theory, it was expected that multinationals would react to public exposure to maintain their legitimacy and recover their reputation. From the perspective of agency theory, the literature review pointed out that companies seek to control their agents to avoid the practice of corruption. Thus, this research sought to identify changes in the content of institutional documents relative to preventing and combating the great corruption, before and during the Lava Jato operation, using content analysis. The software Atlas.ti was adopted as a tool for searching terms and quotes in the documents obtained in the firms websites. The time interval analyzed was from 2012 to 2019. There was a significant change in the prevalence of terms after 2014, the year of publication of the Anticorruption Law and the outbreak of Operation Lava Jato.