Financial Corporations' performances and corruption indices around Europe 1996-2008

This paper is devoted to the increasingly relevant issue of corruption. Financial and economic literature has progressively focused its attention on the impact of corruption on the financial performances of listed companies, highlighting the existence of a negative relation between a Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and companies’ financial performances. Taking into account the performance of 311 intermediaries of the financial sector of 17 countries belonging to both the Euro and the non-Euro area and listed without any interruption since 1996-2008, the analysis confirms that corruption affects corporations’ total investment returns.