Bribe Payers Index

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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.

1 The BPI 2006
- 1.1 Methodology
- 1.2 The Ranking
2 References
3 Sources

[edit] The BPI 2006

[edit] 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.^[1] 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:

In your experience, to what extent do firms from the countries you have selected make undocumented extra payments or bribes?

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.

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.^[2] While most of the countries in the survey are OECD members, membership was not a selection criterion. Thus, OECD countries such as Denmark and Norway are not part of the list, while non-OECD countries like India, Israel, Singapore and South Africa, for instance, are included.

[edit] The Ranking

Rank	Country/ territory	Average score (0-10)	Percentage of global exports (2005)	Ratification of OECD convention	Ratification of UNCAC
1	Switzerland	7.81	1.2	Yes	No
2	Sweden	7.81	1.2	Yes	No
3	Australia	7.59	1.0	Yes	Yes
4	Austria	7.50	0.5	Yes	Yes
5	Canada	7.46	3.5	Yes	No
6	UK	7.39	3.6	Yes	Yes
7	Germany	7.34	9.5	Yes	No
8	Netherlands	7.28	3.4	Yes	No
9-10	Belgium	7.22	3.3	Yes	No
9-10	US	7.22	8.9	Yes	No
11	Japan	7.10	5.8	Yes	No
12	Singapore	6.78	2.2	No	No
13	Spain	6.63	1.9	Yes	Yes
14	UAE	6.62	1.1	No	No
15	France	6.50	4.3	Yes	Yes
16	Portugal	6.47	0.3	Yes	No
17	Mexico	6.45	2.1	Yes	Yes
18-19	Hong Kong	6.01	2.8	No	Yes^[3]
18-19	Israel	6.01	0.4	No	No
20	Italy	5.94	3.6	Yes	No
21	South Korea	5.83	2.8	Yes	No
22	Saudi Arabia	5.75	1.8	No	No
23	Brazil	5.65	1.2	Yes	Yes
24	South Africa	5.61	0.5	No	Yes
25	Malaysia	5.59	1.4	No	No
26	Taiwan	5.41	1.9	No	No^[4]
27	Turkey	5.23	0.7	Yes	Yes
28	Russia	5.16	2.4	No	Yes
29	China	4.94	5.5	No	Yes
30	India	4.62	0.9	Yes	Yes

[edit] References

^ 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.
^ 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
^ Hong Kong is a territory of China and covered under UNCAC
^ Taiwan is not a UN member