The corruption in Colombia: a comprehensive view
The series Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana is a publication of Banco de la República in Cartagena. The opinions contained in this document are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not commit Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
Abstract
This paper reviews the studies on corruption in Colombia, the main definitions,some stylized factsand their typeof measurements. Likewise, it presents the series of the main corruption measures available in the countrybased on data from entities such as the Contraloría General de la Nación(CGR), theProcuraduría General de la Nación(PGN), and the Fiscalía General de la Nación (FGN). Following Henao and Isaza (2018),we identifymeasures for widespread corruption and organizational corruption. Within the latter, this paper analyzes indicators for public and private corruption. The results suggest a significant increase in corruption for the period 2010-2016. However, the complex nature of this phenomenon makes it very difficult to draw regional conclusions and sometimes shows contradictory results. For example, while the PGN data places the Nuevos Departamentosin the first places in terms of disciplinary sanctions, the CGR's fiscal responsibility processes suggest that the greatest corruption occurs in the departments of the coffee and central regions. Similarly, departments such as La Guajira have the lowest number of FGN convictions associated with corruption cases, but it is the department with the highest budget for unfinishedpublicworks per inhabitant after Putumayo. Therefore, the results regarding the evolution of corruption and the rankings to be made will depend significantly on the indicator and the data used.
