Correcting for Scale Perception Bias in Measuring Corruption: an Application to Chile and Spain
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Correcting for Scale Perception Bias in Measuring Corruption: an Application to Chile and Spain Carmelo J. Leo´n • Jorge E. Aran˜a • Javier de Leo´n
Accepted: 24 October 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract Corruption perceptions are commonly utilized as essential information to measure corruption across countries and regions. In this paper we consider the hypothesis that respondents to corruption perception questions utilize different response scales in their answers, i.e. for identical levels of corruption practices, subjects from one country could answer a different level of corruption perception than subjects from another country, based on socioeconomic characteristics. This hypothesis is investigated by utilizing the technique of anchoring vignettes with a sample of citizens in Spain and Chile. The results show that response scales are used differently across individuals in both countries, suggesting that the use of uncorrected measures of corruption perceptions could mislead some conclusions about the comparisons of the corruption levels between countries. Keywords Anchoring vignettes Corruption perception index Corruption perceptions Transparency international
1 Introduction Corruption is one of the most important handicaps that societies can face, since it is capable of generating important economic and social impacts that limit the rise of social welfare.1 It has been shown that corruption increases uncertainty and risk, increases 1 See Mauro (1995), Tanzi and Davoodi (2001), Kauffman et al. (1999, 2000), Wei (1997), Ades and Di Tella (1997), Knack and Keefer (1995), LaPorta et al. (1999), Treisman (2000) and Idemudia et al. (2010). The World Bank has estimated that more than 109 million dollars are lost each year due to corruption, which represents 5 % of the global GDP. The African Union estimates that because of corruption, the African continent loses 25 % of GDP (Podobnik et al. 2008).
C. J. Leo´n J. E. Aran˜a J. de Leo´n (&) Institute of Tourism and Sustainable Economic Development (TIDES), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain e-mail: [email protected] J. E. Aran˜a CenSoc, Technology University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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inequality, reduces production efficiency,2 discourages entrepreneurial activities, takes foreign direct investment away, reduces government revenues, and reduces investment in infrastructure.3 The measurement of corruption across countries is important for reducing the uncertainty that foreign aid investors face when adopting decisions, as well as for comparing the relative performance of countries with different levels of human development. In addition, corruption is a factor that is related with other social and economic issues, and therefore the estimation of the level of corruption in a society can provide useful information about its social and economic performance. Further, by knowing the level of corruption in one country, its citizens can have useful inform
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