“…In the same view, Treisman (2000) and Paldam (2001Paldam ( , 2002Paldam ( , 2009) argued that corruption is a poverty driven disease, which vanishes as the country becomes richer. A lot of evidences have suggested that corruption has a negative effect on economic development, being an impediment to increasing investment (Mauro, 1995;Paldam, 2009), absorption of European funds (Achim and Borlea, 2015), efficiency in fiscal policy (Fjeldstad, 1996(Fjeldstad, , 2003Kaufman, 2010;Ivanyna et al, 2010) and finally on economic growth. For instance, Kaufman (2010) found a strong relationship between corruption and fiscal deficits in industrialized countries.…”