Bribe Payers Index

Bribe Payers Index (BPI) is a measure of how willing a nation appears to comply with demands for corrupt business practices. The first BPI was published by Transparency International on October 26, 1999.

The BPI 2006

Methodology

The BPI is a ranking of 30 of the leading exporting countries according to the propensity of firms with headquarters within their borders to bribe when operating abroad. It is based on the responses of 11,232 business executives from companies in 125 countries to two questions about the business practices of foreign firms operating in their country, as part of the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey 2006. [The WEF is responsible for the overall coordination of the survey and the data quality control process, but relies on a network of partner institutes to carry out the survey locally. WEF’s local partners include economics departments of national universities, independent research institutes, and / or business organisations.] To assess the international supply-side of bribery, executives are asked about the propensity of foreign firms that do the most business in their country to pay bribes or to make undocumented extra payments. The survey is anonymous.

The questions on which the BPI is based first ask respondents to identify the country of origin of foreign-owned companies doing the most business in their country. Respondents are then asked:

Respondents are asked to answer on a scale of 1 (bribes are common) to 7 (bribes never occur). In calculating the BPI, the answers are converted to a score between 0 and 10, and the ranking reflects the average score. Higher scores reveal a lower propensity of companies from a country to offer bribes or undocumented extra payments when doing business abroad. The 30 economies ranked in the BPI are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are among the leading international or regional exporting countries, whose combined global exports represented 82 percent of the world total in 2005. [Source: IMF, international finance statistics, 2005 figures. Available at: http://ifs.apdi.net/imf/output/93B496BD-DCF8-41F8-B0F5-31C7A0A0793C/IFS_Table_36789.701535.xls] While most of the countries in the survey are OECD members, membership was not a selection criterion. Thus, OECD countries such as Denmark, Finland and Norway are not part of the list, while non-OECD countries like India, Israel, Singapore, South Africa and Taiwan, for instance, are included.

The Ranking

ee also

* Transparency International
* Corruption Perceptions Index
* OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
* United Nations Convention against Corruption

Footnotes

ources

* [http://www.transparency.org/content/download/9757/71853/version/1/file/BPI_2006_Analysis_Report_270906_FINAL.pdf Bribe Payers Index (BPI) 2006 Analysis Report]