ABSTRACT
Clearly, corruption can be measured. Until the mid-1990s, most of the empirical findings on corruption in the academic literature were of an incidental or anecdotal nature. A review of the most prominent corruption indicators supports the case for an aggregate index as the most prudent means of capturing information on corruption levels at the macro level. This chapter demonstrates that what was long held to be immeasurable is indeed measurable and that a number of increasingly sophisticated techniques have been developed to do just that. The primary case study is Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). With the exception of data generated in the context of the Bribe Payers Index survey, TI does not commission its own data sources for the CPI. The CPI played a central role in influencing the global agenda for anti-corruption reform. The chapter concludes with a note on the limitations and constraints of these measurements and some possible ways forward.
