Tag Archives: bribery

Bribes Around the World

where the bribes areThe Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 was enacted for the purpose of making it illegal for individuals or entities to make payments to foreign government officials in order to obtain business in a particular country. So far about 200 FCPA violations have been covered in 80 countries.

The darker the color of a country on the map above, the larger the FCPA violations in that country. FCPA violations have been found in different economic sectors: energy, manufacturing, agriculture, consulting, health and pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, defense and aerospace, and infrastructure.

The country with the largest number of FCPA violations is Nigeria, with the majority of bribery cases in the energy sector. Nigeria is followed by Argentina, China, Russia, Iran, and Iraq.

For the interactive map and links to documentation for every FCPA violation, please visit: The Mintz Group: Where the Bribes Are – Penalties in U.S. Government FCPA Cases Since 1977

 

Corruption Indicators

Firms expected to give gifts in meetings with tax officials (% of firms)

For someone living in a country where corruption is widespread, it is very easy to cite examples of corruption, bribery, graft, traffic of influences, nepotism, etc. Measuring corruption in a systematic way is, in contrast, a much more difficult task. Going through the database of World Bank indicators we found two indicators directly related to corruption:

Click on the links above to find out where your country ranks in terms of corruption. Note though that the World Bank does not have data for all countries.

For a far more comprehensive effort at measuring corruption, you may want to check the web site of Transparency International and its annual reports on corruption.