The impact of human development in corruption mitigation: a comparative analysis between Macedonia and Albania

Abstract

The Republic of Macedonia as a transitional economy is not a well- developed country from the economic, social and political points of view. It is characterized by low economic growth, low attraction of foreign investments, and high level of corruption, high unemployment rate and issues with the neighbouring countries. The main goal of this study is to assess the impact of HD index in the reduction of corruption as a way to establish conditions for economic development. The period of assessment will be from 2006 till 2016. The Republic of Macedonia from 2006 till 2016 has witnessed improvement in terms of CPI (Corruption Perception Index), from the 105th position it has risen to the 90th position on ranking, but on the same time this is not a satisfying position compared to the other Western Balkans countries. We think that by improving health of life, level of education and having a decent standard of living can contribute to corruption mitigation. Using the multiple regression model (OLS) we will try to determine the effect of increasing HD index to reduction of the corruption effects and to compare the results between Macedonia and Albania. The limitation of this paper is the smaller number of observations as a result of the short period of analysis because of the lack of adequate analytical data for the countries that are object of this assessment.