Corrupon, government economic performance and instuonal ust in the MENA region

Movaon: Counies in the MENA region are perceived as highly corrupt. ey are suggling to achieve clear results against corrupon. Unfortunately, no couny has reached a signicant improvement on the Corrupon Percepons Index (CPI) published by Transparency Internaonal in 2022. e United Arab Emirates and Qatar are the top performers in the region. e former was scored 69/100, the laer 58 out of 100. Libya (17/100), Yemen (16/100), and Syria (13/100) awfully damaged by the war are the worst. e state-of-the-art impacts ust at the naonal level and the performance of public instuons as well. Aim: is paper aims at studying the relaonship between corrupon and ust, and its impact on public economic performance in the MENA region, based on the data provided by Arab Barometer, 2018-2019. Our sample includes 8215 individuals located in 12 counies in that region. To test all our hypotheses simultaneously, we have used the suctural equaon modelling method with SmartPLS soware. e latent variables of the research model - corrupon, ghng corrupon, and economic performance of the government - are used as a reecve measurement. However, ust is included in the model as a formave measurement. Results: e ndings show that ust in public instuons, measured by a formave scale, is negavely impacted by the level of corrupon (-0,36). It also depends on the eorts made by the state to ght corrupon in public agencies and instuons (0,37). Trust is one of the most important components of social capital. e performance of public policies is highly correlated to the level of ust between public adminisaon and individuals. e government's economic performance depends on the level of that ust (0,341), the eorts made to ght corrupon (0,173), and public corrupon (-230). Consequently, corrupon is seen as the main explanatory variable which directly impacts ust towards public instuons, and indirectly by mediang the government economic performance. e former means that there is an associaon between performance and corrupon. e laer consists in ansming the eect of corrupon on instuonal ust through the government economic performance which acts as a compeve mediator.