When we talk about corruption in Spain, we have to do it only at the end of scandals, commissions and resignations. Typical titles that are worn for a few weeks and then forgotten. However, we rarely talk about the deeper and long-lasting dimension: the economic and structural costs.
A specific contract is not simply written. System costs. Costs that we all pay each month in the form of less growth, lower wages and lost opportunities.
Because corruption is not just money disappearing from public coffers. It is a mechanism that changes the incentives of the entire economy, distorts the allocation of resources, and changes the type of entrepreneur who succeeds.
Economist Johann Graf Lambsdorff clearly showed that there are no ineffective regulations and that corrupt officials are limited to approving them. It’s right at the bottom. Corrupt officials create ineffective regulations to control destiny.
Don’t accept the mystery that exists. The drawing is done. An unnecessary process, a public consultation, an opaque rule that requires arbitrary interpretation are not symptoms of a rampant bureaucracy. i am Mayoría de las veces, intentional architecture Saqueo.
Any reform that reduced discretion is resisted by those who live in it
This view radically changes the diagnosis. Since corruption was only dishonest agents sneaking in on the sorrows, it would be enough to hide the sorrows.
However, if corruption is the engine that generates these complaints, the problem is structural, systemic and extraordinarily difficult to eradicate. Therefore, any reform that reduces discretion is opposed by those who live in it.
The public choice school has shown how political agents operate with specific incentives. When access to regulation, concession, or demand depends on the pursuit of power, recursion disappears from the productivity that affects it. Talent needs to compete in the market and is sufficient to compete in the space.
Here you have to absorb the economic costs of corruption. According to Axel Dreher and Thomas Herzfeld, each point increase in the corruption index cuts GDP growth by 0.13 percentage points per year and reduces per capita income to a constant $425. However, corruption also leads to direct external inversion, distorts the public economy, expands the shadow economy and undermines the legitimacy of institutions.
Economic history provides an uncomfortable but enlightening perspective. In England in the 18th and 19th centuries, one of the decisive factors in industrial development was the consolidation of relatively predictable and trusts that reduce transaction costs.
The implicit message conveyed by productive tejido is that it is not enough to be good, to be sought after
A prosperous entrepreneur was generally one who was innovative, better organized production or entered new markets. Rest assured that the outcome will not be decided by proximity to power. When that trust doesn’t exist, if the company’s efforts are focused on capture.
And that is the other shore of current corruption. The implicit message that is conveyed to productive tejido is that it is not enough to be good to be sought after.
An entrepreneur who wants to grow spends time and resources to protect himself politically. The investor requests the first institutional decision. The most productive entrepreneur may choose to go where the rules are clearest. Because trust is an extremely fragile macroeconomic asset.
On the other side of the street, corruption does not sit well with economic elites. In an environment where those who know how to innovate thrive, the system tends to increase the average level of competence. In an environment where those who can negotiate favors thrive, the system rewards opacity.
The growth becomes brittle and less able to sustain itself over time. Because sustainable growth does not depend only on physical or human capital. Abandoning shared expectations. Based on the belief that effort will tend to be rewarded and that the rules of the game will not change arbitrarily.
Corruption is paid for by less growth in power, fewer opportunities and lower salaries than they could be
Spain is a manual case. It is now 49 out of 180 countries in the International Transparency Corruption Perception Index 2025. The trend is downward. The BBVA Foundation estimates that this should be fixed A deficit in institutional quality could increase GDP per capita by 16% in Spain over five years.
On the other hand, the CNMC calculated that in 2017 the costs incurred by illegal practices in public procurement amounted to 48,000 million euros per year; Current prices today are looking for 60,000 million, more than 1,200 euros per person per year.
Here appears the most characteristic rasgo of the Spanish case. Historically, corruption did not take the form of large corporate councils, or not mainly, until the year territorial, urban corruption, conquered in local and municipal negotiations.
More widespread, more everyday and therefore more difficult to eradicate. Since 2000, more than 3,700 cases and more than 600 municipalities have been identified. Because the system works exactly as described by Lambsdorff, someone designed the lock before offering the item for sale.
However, the Spanish political debate on corruption is always a debate about this comet. Rarely as far as our questions are concerned, and never so far as to be seriously addressed by concrete institutional reforms.
For example, transparent and digital public negotiations, control bodies with real independence, functional careers protected from political capture, drastic reduction of administrative discretion. During this debate no changes in nature, the mechanism will continue to work.
Corruption is paid for by less growth in power, fewer opportunities and lower wages than they could be. It is not an abstract ethical problem. It’s a productivity issue.
It is convenient to record it when the sound of the scandal quickly returns to the door. Because the really expensive one is not the current owner. It is the silent accumulation of despondency that conditions wounds.
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