2013 Corruption Perceptions Index

Last week the 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index was released. The Corruption Perceptions Index, or CPI, is an index of 177 countries in the world and their corruption levels. The rankings are based on perceptions of the country and how much illegal activity or scandals in the public sector exist as well as many other factors. Countries are scored in two ways. The first is on a scale from 0-100. A country that has a score of zero is considered to be extremely corrupt and a country with a score of one hundred is perceived as being very clean or not corrupt.

A few of the highlights from this years data are that North Korea, Afghanistan, and Somalia are the most corrupt countries in the world. On the other end of the spectrum Denmark and New Zealand are the least corrupt countries in the world in 2013. The United States was given a score of 73 and ranked as the 19th country in the world as far as corruption goes (1 being least corrupt, 177 being most corrupt).

Also included on the CPI site is a test your knowledge where one can go to see just how much they know about corruption around the world. To find out more about the CPI and other country rankings, check out our indices pages on globalEDGE!