25 most corrupt countries in the world

August 27 (InsiderMonkey) – In this article, we discuss the 25 most corrupt countries in the world.

Corruption refers to the act of misuse of authority for personal gain. It encompasses a broad range of actions, including the taking of bribes to patronage at the expense of a public or corporate office to utilizing authority for actions that are less than sanctioned and/or legal.

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Corruption has been a persistent phenomenon around the world to varying degrees. It is most prevalent in developing countries and to a lesser extent, exists in the developed countries as well. According to EconStor’s citation of a World Bank report, an estimated 1 trillion in US Dollars equivalent is paid in bribes worldwide annually.

Corruption as a phenomenon can be quantified by Klitgaard’s Equation proposed by Robert Klitgaard in 1998. It is given as follows:

C = R + D – A

Where C stands for corruption,

R stands for Economic Rent

D stands for Discretionary powers

And A stands for Accountability

In a qualitative sense, the equation states that the more opportunities for economic rent that exist in a country combined with more discretionary powers in the hands of public officials and a lack of accountability, the more corruption will prevail in that country.

In this regard, a country experiences less corruption if it has a healthy market but the government size is small and decentralized and there are strong institutions for accountability.. These conditions exist in developed countries which experience relatively less corruption than the developing countries which usually lack the same.

Our Methodology

For our list of the 25 most corrupt countries in the world, we’d be using Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index of 2020 as our metric. It is the latest report on Corruption across the world and also the most authoritative when it comes to quantifying corruption for different countries. The CPI bases its conclusions on 13 data sources. CPI ranks countries based on a score on a scale of 1-100. Countries on the higher end of the scale happen to be least corrupt while those on the lower end, happen to be the most corrupt.

With this context in mind, let’s now discuss our list of the 25 most corrupt countries in the world.