Recanatini, Francesca --- "Assessing Corruption at the Country Level" [2011] ELECD 991; in Graycar, Adam; Smith, G. Russell (eds), "Handbook of Global Research and Practice in Corruption" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Handbook of Global Research and Practice in Corruption

Editor(s): Graycar, Adam; Smith, G. Russell

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849805018

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Assessing Corruption at the Country Level

Author(s): Recanatini, Francesca

Number of pages: 29

Extract:

4 Assessing corruption at the country level
Francesca Recanatini


INTRODUCTION
Over the past ten years researchers have increasingly focused on the link
between poor governance, corruption and economic growth. The cross-
country evidence has shown how poor governance and corruption can be
harmful for the standard of living and the distribution of income of citi-
zens, reducing income per capita and literacy, while increasing infant mor-
tality. Further, poor governance distorts public expenditure and increases
poverty, reducing investment efficiency.1 These initial results have posed
two challenges for practitioners and policymakers:

(i) to move beyond anecdotal evidence to a systematic approach for
measuring governance and corruption and their determinants; and
(ii) to use data and rigorous analysis to support institutional reforms at
the country level to curb corruption and improve governance.

Governance and corruption are however multi-dimensional phenomena
that can affect different sectors and groups of citizens in a country. Their
complexity and multi-sectoral breadth have translated into different
methods to define and measure them, leading to a sizeable amount of quite
dissimilar information and data. Moreover, the initial research focus on
the causes of corruption and poor governance has led to a mushrooming
of cross-country indicators. This has posed some difficult tradeoffs for
policymakers. Research objectives have often called for comparability and
standardization across countries, while effective reform design requires
highly disaggregated and country specific data that are comparable over
time for monitoring purposes.
This chapter proposes an alternative approach to the design and imple-
mentation ...