A New Cross-national Measure of Corruption

Escresa Laarni (University of the Philippines)

Picci Lucio (University of Bologna)

Abstract: We propose a new measure of cross-national corruption, the Public Administration Corruption Index (PACI), based on the geographic distribution of public officials involved in cross-border corruption cases. We consider to what extent differences between the PACI and perception based measures are driven by systematic factors, and conclude that they are not. As more data on cases of cross-border bribes become available, the PACI will provide an increasingly valid cross-national measure of corruption.