Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Competitiveness & Corruption - Good news and bad news

The below data on competitiveness are taken from the World Bank's Doing Business Report and on corruption from Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.

First the good news: among 183 countries world-wide, Greece moved up from 100 to 78 in the Doing Business Report. While that still leaves Greece at the bottom of European countries, it is quite a significant improvement.

The not-so-good news is that among 174 countries world-wide, Greece declined from 80 to 94 in the Corruption Perceptions Index. Not only is that a significant decline but it also moved Greece to the last position among European countries (the year before, Greece was second-to-last before Bulgaria).

On the Corruption Perception Index: as the name suggests, this is based on perceptions and does not necesssarily reflect the actual situation (which is not measurable). As the economic crisis got worse, Greeks perceived corruption to go up. That could either be a change in perception or intensified perceptions due to the crisis.

Doing Business
Corruption Perception







Country Rank
Country Rank








2012 2013

2011 2012







Denmark 5 5
Denmark 2 1
Norway 6 6
Finland 2 1
UK 7 7
Sweden 4 4
Finland 11 11
Netherlands 7 9
Sweden 14 13
Luxemburg 11 12
Iceland 9 15
Germany 14 13
Ireland 10 15
Belgium 19 16
Germany 19 20
UK 16 17
Estonia 24 21
France 25 22
Macedonia 22 23
Austria 16 25
Latvia 21 25
Ireland 19 25
Lithuania 27 27
Cyprus 30 29
Switzerland 26 28
Spain 31 30
Austria 32 29
Estonia 29 32
Portugal 30 30
Portugal 32 33
Netherlands 31 31
Slovenia 35 37
Belgium 28 33
Poland 41 41
France 29 34
Hungary 54 46
Slovenia 37 35
Lithuania 50 48
Cyprus 40 36
Czech Republic 57 54
Spain 44 44
Latvia 61 54
Slovakia 48 46
Slovakia 66 62
Hungary 51 54
Romania 75 66
Poland 62 55
Italy  69 72
Luxemburg 50 56
Bulgaria 86 75
Czech Republic 64 65
Greece 80 94
Bulgaria 59 66



Romania 72 72



Italy  87 73



Greece 100 78

















2 comments:

  1. A fascinating post!

    My own experience, and others around me, is that corruption has considerably declined, especially in the last year. The expectation of fakelakia in public hospitals has dropped to near zero, and civil servants in Demos offices have changed behaviour toward the better, in fear of being fired.

    On the other hand, we have watched government protect the so-called elite throughout 3 years of crisis. We are told they are 'impossible to catch'. Even when caught, they appear in court and are out on the streets again. Since NOBODY is impossible to catch, or deal with, they clearly have protection. Leading even the most conservative among us to conclude that nothing will ever change until the old centrist parties have been removed once and for all from power.

    Since corporations and the very rich account for well over 60% of the tax take each year this question has become extremely urgent for the 75% of the greek population that cannot stagger much further under its present burden to make up the short fall.

    I suggest that this is the reason Greeks are perceiving More Corruption rather than Less. Government protected high level corruption has become a massive, blundering, fly-ridden and completely unavoidable Elephant in the Room.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This article seems timely.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/europe/oligarchs-play-a-role-in-greeces-economic-troubles.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&_r=0&emc=tnt

      Delete