Corruption: “World’s Most Discussed Problem”

This is according to a new BBC news survey. But note that the survey measures the salience of “corruption” relative to other global social problems (only “poverty” is rated more salient) and not the significance of those problems. Moreover, the salience of global problems is related to many things besides the merit of the problem itself, as Clifford Bob has documented.

So people believe corruption is a serious global problem. How serious and widespread is it? Transparency International recently came out with its 2010 report, and its map (below) is suggestive. (If you want to see some other interactive visualizations, click here.) It depends on the country, but at a global level corruption does seem to be a serious concern.

Oh, except for one problem. Transparency International doesn’t actually measure corruption. It measures people’s (experts’ and business leaders’) perceptions of corruption. So once again, we have a relative salience measure, rather than a measure of the scope of the problem itself.

How if at all might an analysis of general corruption levels be improved?