ABSTRACT
During the past fi fteen years, empir ical studies of corrup tion – under stood as the misuse of public offi ce for private gain – have mush roomed. The main impetus has been the public a tion of cross-national indexes of ‘perceived corrup tion’, fi rst by the organ isa tion Transparency International and then by a team of econom ists at the World Bank. These ratings aggreg ate the assess ments of inter na tional risk analysts, busi ness exec ut ives, other experts and survey respond ents from the coun tries in ques tion. Scholars have found that higher perceived corruption, meas ured in this way, correl ates with a variety of plaus ible explan at ory factors.
