Is corruption on the rise or is the current focus on corruption merely the result of increased media coverage?
It is difficult to tell whether corruption is on the rise. Certainly it is much more visible today than it has ever been, as in today’s world the press has an improved ability to perform its role in exposing corruption. The fundamental problem is that acts of corruption involve two or more people, each of whom benefits from the transactions being kept secret and none of whom gain from “blowing the whistle”. Unlike an iceberg, we cannot calculate how much corruption “ice” lies unseen below the surface as no-one knows. No-one has yet found a credible means for measuring actual levels of corruption and its costs. We can only measure “perceptions” as in our Corruptions Perceptions Index. What we can say for sure, however, is that the extensive media coverage that corruption is now receiving reflects a sharp and hopefully lasting increase in global awareness of this problem. Events such as the recent collapse of the Asian economy have shocked the financial world into the realisation that co
