The Supply-Side of International Corruption : A New Measure and a Critique

I consider the “supply-side” of corruption in the context of international bribery, which I define as firms bribing public officials abroad. I present the “Bribe Payers Corruption Index” (BPCI), a non perception-based measure of cross-border corruption, which is coherent with a simple analytical framework based on an important distinction: that between the propensities to corrupt, and observed levels of corruption. The BPCI is compared with a widely known indicator of the supply-side of corruption, Transparency International's “Bribe Payers Index” (TI-BPI), which I demonstrate to be flawed. Whereas, according to the TI-BPI, firms from corrupt countries are more likely to bribe abroad, the opposite emerges when the BPCI is considered. I explain and discuss such result, whose implications are framed within the global discourse on the supply-side of international corruption