The hypothesis is straight forward, the relationship between education, corruption, democracy, and wealth.
Income
Almost no countries have been able to achieve a high income without at least 10 years of schooling. This is critical to developing a developed economy.
All high income countries have low corruption.
Most high income countries are democratic.
Most countries with a high level of press freedom are wealthy, and vice versa, but this relationship is weaker than the others.
Mean Years of schooling
Countries which are less corrupt are better educated.
The connection between democracy and education is weaker than the connection with corruption.
The connection between press freedom and education is present, but weak.
Corruption
Less corrupt countries are more democratic. There are some exceptions of undemocratic countries which score well on corruption, mostly rentier states in the Middle East. There are no highly corrupt highly democratic states.
Less corrupt countries have more press freedom.
Democracy
Democracy and press freedom are unsurprisingly correlated.
It is clear there is correlation between these factors, what matters now is directionality.
I don't think it is necessarily one way or the other. I think typically countries will fight both corruption and improve democratic reforms at the same time.
As a country is under a period of democratic transition, let's take Georgia for instance because its one of the best examples, the government will work on anti-corruption probes as elections become more free and fair. As the Saakashvili government worked on anti-corruption probes and reforms which mirrored those of the United States in the late 19th century they also made democratic reforms as Georgia continued to progress on social metrics.
As Saakashvili fought corruption and eliminated burdensome red tape Georgia's economy was one of the fastest in the world.
Which is why when Zelensky was elected in Ukraine Putin saw him as a major threat. If Zelensky had been allowed to succeed in mirroring the progress in Georgia in rooting out corruption and developing their economy it would lead Russians to ask... why not us? That is why Ukraine was invaded as soon as Putin saw an opening in 2022.
In practice it is not a question of whether a government should pass democratic reforms or crack down on a corruption... the real way to succeed is to do both at the same time. While implementing democratic and anti-corruption reforms, make sure to defend yourself with strategic alliances to deter invaders who will feel threatened.
That is where Georgia and Ukraine were stopped by Angela Merkel, almost single handedly.
Georgia and Ukraine had the advantage that they already had a high level of education.
If you are a country in Latin America where mean years of schooling lag, you have to do that at the same time. Focus on keeping people in school through high school, penalize truancy, and that will lead to your economy developing. Latin American countries are democratic now with only a few exceptions. The remaining challenge for them in their development is to continue improving their education and increase high school graduation rates.
So let's take a country for example... let's say Guatemala. The average Guatemalan has only 5 years of education, makes $4000 per year, corruption is high, and their democracy score is 4 out of 10 where 10 is perfect. What should Guatemala do?
Based on my research the first thing is for the Guatemalan government to mimic the corruption probes which Georgia did in the 2000s.
- Prosecute corrupt officials.
- Children need to stay in school longer. Seek out foreign aid for the education system and redirect public resources from corrupt gifts to stimulate the education system.
- Slash red tape which does not serve the purpose of protecting workers or consumers from danger.
If they do this then they will have a more prosperous economy and a more free society.
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