The average for 2023 based on 193 countries was -0.04 points. The highest value was in Denmark: 2.38 points and the lowest value was in Syria: -1.75 points. The indicator is available from 1996 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Disclaimer

This dataset is NOT a reflection of my personal views.

This dataset contains evaluation of corruption from two major agencies, Transparency International and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), a World Bank project. The data from Transparency International is split into two files because they don't have exactly the same columns, although most columns are the same. It makes more sense to have them seperately, and you can merge them if you would like to. - transparency_active.csv contains Transparency International data from 2012-2021 - transparency_legacy.csv contains Transparency International data from 1995-2011 - wgidataset.csv contains WGI data from 1996-2021 - wgidataset_readme.pdf is a documentation that explains what the indicators mean in wgidataset.csv

Content

The Corruption Perceptions Index scores and ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be. It is a composite index, a combination of surveys and assessments of corruption, collected by a variety of reputable institutions. The CPI is the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide.

Corruption generally comprises illegal activities, which are deliberately hidden and only come to light through scandals, investigations or prosecutions. There is no meaningful way to assess absolute levels of corruption in countries or territories on the basis of hard empirical data. Possible attempts to do so, such as by comparing bribes reported, the number of prosecutions brought or studying court cases directly linked to corruption, cannot be taken as definitive indicators of corruption levels. Instead, they show how effective prosecutors, the courts or the media are in investigating and exposing corruption. Capturing perceptions of corruption of those in a position to offer assessments of public sector corruption is the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries.

Acknowledgements

The data sources used to calculate the Corruption Perceptions Index scores and ranks were provided by the African Development Bank, Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation, The Economist, Freedom House, IHS Markit, IMD Business School, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, Political Risk Services, World Bank, World Economic Forum, World Justice Project, and Varieties of Democracy Project.

Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank in Japan was reported at 90.09 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Japan - Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on November of 2025.

Dive into Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for a global overview of corruption trends and rankings.

Reference:

Transparency International (n.d). Corruption Perception Index. [online] Transparency.org. Available at: https://www.transparency.org/en/.

To know more details about reproducing and using Transparency International work, you can consult https://www.transparency.org/permissions ‌

The Quality of Government Expert Survey II is based on the subjective assessments of carefully selected country experts. The questionnaire included 71 substantive questions.

Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank in India was reported at 41.51 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. India - Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on October of 2025.

Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) report on six broad dimensions of governance for more than 200 economies since 1996: (I) Voice and Accountability; (II) Political Stability and Absence of Violence; (III) Government Effectiveness; (IV) Regulatory Quality; (V) Rule of Law; and (VI) Control of Corruption. The WGI are composite governance indicators based on over 30 underlying data sources. These data sources are rescaled and combined to create the six aggregate indicators using a statistical methodology known as an unobserved components model. A key feature of the methodology is that it generates margins of error for each governance estimate. These margins of error need to be taken into account when making comparisons across countries and over time. The WGI aggregate indicators and underlying source data are available at http://www.govindicators.org.

For further details, please refer to http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/Home/Documents

Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank in Cayman Islands was reported at 65.09 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Cayman Islands - Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on November of 2025.

Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank in Bangladesh was reported at 14.62 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Bangladesh - Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on November of 2025.

United States US: Control of Corruption: Estimate data was reported at 1.381 NA in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 1.373 NA for 2016. United States US: Control of Corruption: Estimate data is updated yearly, averaging 1.397 NA from Dec 1996 (Median) to 2017, with 19 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.924 NA in 2002 and a record low of 1.269 NA in 2011. United States US: Control of Corruption: Estimate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WGI: Country Governance Indicators. Control of Corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

The 2018 BCI index

The Bayesian Corruption Index is a composite index of the perceived overall level of corruption. Corruption: With corruption, we refer to the “abuse of public power for private gain." Perceived corruption: Given the hidden nature of corruption, direct measures are hard to come by or inherently flawed (e.g. the number of corruption convictions). Instead, we amalgamate the opinions on the level of corruption from the country’s inhabitants, companies operating there, NGOs, and officials working both in governmental and supra-governmental organizations. Composite: It combines the information from 17 different surveys and 110 different survey questions that cover the perceived level of corruption.

It is an alternative to the other well-known indicators of corruption perception: the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published by Transparency International and the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) published by the World Bank. Methodologically, it is most closely related to the latter as the methodology used in the construction of the BCI can be seen as an augmented version of the Worldwide Governance Indicators’ methodology. The augmentation allows an increase in the coverage. In contrast to the WGI or CPI, the underlying source data are entered without any ex-ante imputations, averaging or other manipulations. This results in an index representing the underlying data, unbiased by the composer’s modelling choices.

The latest version of the index is the 2023 version. It covers 221 countries from 1984 to 2021. For replicatability's sake, the older index versions are also made available. The 2014 version of the index is available for 219 countries from 1984 to 2014 The 2018 version of the index is available for 219 countries from 1984 to 2017

Please cite as: Samuel Standaert (2015) "Divining the Level of Corruption: a Bayesian State Space Approach", Journal of Comparative Economics, 43 (3) 782-803. DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2014.05.007

Philippines PH: Control of Corruption: Estimate data was reported at -0.475 NA in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of -0.488 NA for 2016. Philippines PH: Control of Corruption: Estimate data is updated yearly, averaging -0.563 NA from Dec 1996 (Median) to 2017, with 19 observations. The data reached an all-time high of -0.295 NA in 1998 and a record low of -0.830 NA in 2006. Philippines PH: Control of Corruption: Estimate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Philippines – Table PH.World Bank.WGI: Country Governance Indicators. Control of Corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

The Africa Integrity Indicators, produced by Global Integrity in partnership with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, assesses governance and policy implementation across Africa. The dataset evaluates corruption and governance both in law and in practice, focusing on transparency, accountability, and social development. It examines the implementation of national policies that support governments, citizens, and civil society while measuring social, economic, political, and anti-corruption mechanisms. The data is used by organizations like the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) and the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI).

Trinidad and Tobago TT: Control of Corruption: Estimate data was reported at -0.364 NA in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of -0.240 NA for 2016. Trinidad and Tobago TT: Control of Corruption: Estimate data is updated yearly, averaging -0.064 NA from Dec 1996 (Median) to 2017, with 19 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.901 NA in 1996 and a record low of -0.414 NA in 2014. Trinidad and Tobago TT: Control of Corruption: Estimate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Trinidad and Tobago – Table TT.World Bank.WGI: Country Governance Indicators. Control of Corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

France FR: Control of Corruption: Estimate data was reported at 1.260 NA in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1.400 NA for 2016. France FR: Control of Corruption: Estimate data is updated yearly, averaging 1.368 NA from Dec 1996 (Median) to 2017, with 19 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.532 NA in 2011 and a record low of 1.228 NA in 2002. France FR: Control of Corruption: Estimate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s France – Table FR.World Bank.WGI: Country Governance Indicators. Control of Corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

Nepal NP: CPIA: Transparency: Accountability: and Corruption in The Public Sector Rating: 1=Low To 6=High data was reported at 3.000 NA in 2017. This stayed constant from the previous number of 3.000 NA for 2016. Nepal NP: CPIA: Transparency: Accountability: and Corruption in The Public Sector Rating: 1=Low To 6=High data is updated yearly, averaging 3.000 NA from Jul 2005 (Median) to 2017, with 13 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3.000 NA in 2017 and a record low of 2.500 NA in 2010. Nepal NP: CPIA: Transparency: Accountability: and Corruption in The Public Sector Rating: 1=Low To 6=High data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Nepal – Table NP.World Bank: Policy and Institutions. Transparency, accountability, and corruption in the public sector assess the extent to which the executive can be held accountable for its use of funds and for the results of its actions by the electorate and by the legislature and judiciary, and the extent to which public employees within the executive are required to account for administrative decisions, use of resources, and results obtained. The three main dimensions assessed here are the accountability of the executive to oversight institutions and of public employees for their performance, access of civil society to information on public affairs, and state capture by narrow vested interests.; ; World Bank Group, CPIA database (http://www.worldbank.org/ida).; Unweighted average;

Perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as "capture" of the state by elites and private interests.

working-age population (ages 15-64)growth rate was extracted from the World Bank Open Data databases .he real GDP (Y) ,the working-age population (L) and the depreciation rate δ were extracted from the Penn World Table 9.1 . The growth rate of technological progress g is assumed to be constant and equal to 1%.the average share of real investment (inclusive of government investment) was calculated based on PWT 9.1 data. The Regulator Quality Index, Corruption Index, Voice and Accountability Index, Political Stabili-ty/No Violence Index, Government Effectiveness Index, and Rule of Law Index were obtained from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) dataset.This dataset include 4 different samples of countries, with different economic and institutional environment.

The World Justice Project developed the conceptual framework summarized in the Index's 9 factors and 47 sub-factors, in consultation with academics, practitioners, and community leaders from around the world. The Index team developed a set of five questionnaires based on the Index's conceptual framework, to be administered to experts and the general public.