D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 1, January/February 2000, p. 28)

Since the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) was first published in 1995 there have been objections that it portrays only one side of the international corruption equation: that of the bribe recipients. The list contains no assessment of the other side, the bribe payers in international trade. That resulted in very poor countries occupying the top positions among corruption-prone states, while the industrialised nations were found at lower levels. One of the goals of Transparency International (TI), however, was from the start to disclose the cross-border dimension of corruption. The CPI did not achieve this objective.

Thus we recognised that a grouping of leading export countries according to their inclination to pay bribes was badly needed. However, we had no empirical data upon which such an index could be based. Leading economists who deal with corruption and whom we asked for advice even said that such an index would make no sense or could not be drawn up. In 1997, Johann Count Lambsdorff made an econometric analysis which found that some major exporters traded chiefly with particularly corrupt countries. This was undoubtedly a step in the right direction. But for methodological reasons we could not decide to publish this study under the name of TI as an equivalent to the CPI.

We agreed that if we wished to undertake a new examination of this highly sensitive issue we would have to develop a completely new methodology, with a new questionnaire and a new random sample plan, and that this methodology must be tested in advance in a pilot study. It was also clear that this would be costly and that we would have to find the funds for it.

It was not until 1999 that we were ready. We talked to leading business people, academics, civil servants and journalists in Europe and in North and South America. A first successful pilot study was implemented in Argentina last June. After obtaining various offers, we commissioned Gallup International to carry out the main study by interviewing leading business people in 14 threshold countries.

The countries in which the survey was implemented were without exception threshold states (mostly outside the OECD) which were not greatly dependent upon external financial aid. The leading countries selected on each continent were:

Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco;

Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia;

Asia-Pacific: India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea;

Europe: Hungary, Poland, Russia.

The list encompassed former British and French colonies and large Islamic and Buddhist countries, and took account of Asia (with five countries) to a degree that matched the region's role in international trade and the investment sector. In each country, Gallup interviewed 55 to 60 leading figures in major national or foreign companies, chambers of trade and industry, lawyer's practices, auditing firms and commercial banks.

The Bribe Payers Index (BPI) arising from the study covers assessments of the 19 top export countries, from the USA to Australia. Countries which export mainly raw materials were not included in the list. We think that publication of the BPI this year is timely because it coincides with the coming into effect of the OECD convention against the bribing of foreign civil servants. The BPI 1999 and its successors in coming years therefore will provide the benchmark against which the effectiveness of the convention can be measured.

In the following table the countries are listed on a points scale of 0 to 10, whereby 10 signifies the least readiness to pay bribes and 0 the greatest. We were surprised that no country scored in the upper ranks.

In addition to the BPI, we are working on a rankings list of the economic sectors which in international business dealings are most inclined to corruption. We shall publish this list in some months' time. There are broad-scale observations that some branches are more prone to corruption than others. This list should help to focus on this situation and perhaps also give the impetus for sector-specific reforms, such as by means of the instrument of the integrity pact developed by TI.