The index of corruption

This week’s trade-newsletter from the think-tank PPI is as interesting as usual. Ed Gresser (the very smart guy behind the PPI Trade & Global Markets project) highlights something I had completely missed: the new Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI 2005, here you can also read more about sources, methods etc).

According to the index, which ranges from 10 (very clean) to 0 (very corrupt), Sweden is as usual in the top group with a figure above 9. This year’s position (6) and index (9,2) is identical to the CPI 2004. A few years ago Sweden ranked even higher, hovering around third place with a slightly higher index (9,3-9,4). One difference is that the Scandinavian countries are no longer alone in the top, and this year’s top five list looks as follows: Iceland, Finland, New Zeeland, Denmark, and Singapore. I guess that the differences are not that big at the top, and hopefully Sweden will continue to be challenged from behind as other countries improve. Still far behind: Russia is on place 126th!

When it comes to US, the newsletter discusses the fact that the US has dropped three places (from 14th to 17th), and as we all know scandals have popped up both in politics (Tom Delay, CIA-agents and Karl Rove, etc) and business (remember Enron, anyone?). Read more here.