Analysis of the Impact of Corruption Perception on Subjective Wellbeing: Revisiting the Boiling Frog Parable from the World Happiness Report 2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/empiria.67.2026.48257Palabras clave:
Corruption, Government Policy, Public Economics, Europe, Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic DevelopmentResumen
Considering the growing importance of happiness in modern societies, it is necessary to consider how wellbeing could be increased. According to both the Economy and Psychology domains, corruption is a crucial sociopolitical feature to investigate in this subject because of its ability to lower the population's perception of wellbeing. This paper aims to estimate the potential effect of corruption perception on subjective wellbeing. We hypothesise, on the one hand, a negative relationship between corruption perception and subjective wellbeing. On the other hand, following the Hedonic Treadmill, the link between corruption perception and subjective wellbeing is more significant in environments with low corruption perception, such as in European countries, compared to environments with high corruption perception. Our results show that, despite high corruption perception levels worldwide, and following the 'boiling frog' parable, it is only in Europe where the indicator has a significant influence on happiness. There is a restrictive limit on happiness in European countries with high perceptions of corruption. Our findings support the need to involve public institutions in the search for a trustworthy framework that ensures honourable progress is monitored in political and business management.
La creciente centralidad de la felicidad en las sociedades contemporáneas hace imprescindible profundizar en los factores que inciden sobre el bienestar. Desde una doble perspectiva económica y psicológica, la corrupción se configura como una variable sociopolítica de particular relevancia, dada su capacidad para erosionar la percepción de bienestar de la población. En este contexto, el presente trabajo estima el efecto potencial de la percepción de corrupción sobre el bienestar subjetivo a partir de dos hipótesis. La primera plantea la existencia de una relación negativa entre ambas variables. La segunda, fundamentada en la teoría de la adaptación hedónica, sugiere que dicho vínculo es más intenso en contextos con baja percepción de corrupción (como el europeo) que en aquellos donde esta percepción es elevada. Los resultados obtenidos indican que, pese a los altos niveles de corrupción percibida a escala global, es únicamente en Europa donde este indicador ejerce una influencia estadísticamente significativa sobre el bienestar percibido, lo que remite a la fábula de «la rana hervida». En conjunto, estos hallazgos subrayan la necesidad de que las instituciones públicas desempeñen un papel activo en la consolidación de un marco de confianza que garantice un seguimiento riguroso y transparente de la gestión política y empresarial.
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Derechos de autor 2026 María Concepción Pérez-Cárceles, María Magdalena Fernández-Valera
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