Are you stupid?! Austria could have lost 15 billion euros due to corruption The somewhat different way of protesting against global warming

The economic damage caused by corruption in Austria could have amounted to more than 15 billion euros by 2021. This was the result of calculations by Friedrich Schneider, professor at the Johannes Keppler University in Linz. The damage increases every year. To counter this, political measures are needed, such as better protection for whistleblowers and tougher penalties, Schneider told the APA.

According to Schneider, corruption has a number of major consequences that negatively affect an economy. If the best bidder is not given the opportunity to bid, the state loses tax revenue or spends an unnecessary amount of public money.

On the other hand, productivity is reduced by eliminating companies that are denied a chance in public (or private) contracts due to bribery activities by their competitors. In addition, corruption deteriorates the quality of state institutions.

Total abolition probably an illusion

That corruption can be completely eradicated is probably a utopia. However, if it were possible to keep them at the Swiss level, the damage to the Austrian economy would be 6.2 billion euros less, according to Schneider’s calculations.

According to Schneider, the economic damage in Germany will amount to 221.2 billion euros in 2020 and 234.1 billion euros in 2021. For the 27 EU countries as a whole, he calculates a damage of 938 billion euros in 2020 and 1011.5 billion euros in 2021.

Accurately measuring corruption in a country is, of course, difficult because you have to rely on surveys, Schneider admitted. Transparency International’s data is the most commonly used here, whose latest ranking ranked Austria 13th out of 180 countries surveyed. (aeg/sda/apa)