Measurement of Validity of Corruption Indices

Corruption is an intrinsically latent phenomenon, which makes it a challenging task to measure it and requires the use of indirect indicators. The academic community and non-government organizations have proposed various indices that differ in terms of their methodology, data and coverage. In this paper, we estimate construct validity of the most widely used indices of corruption: The Corruption Perceptions Index, The Control of Corruption Index, The Bribing and Corruption Index, The Corruption Index, and The Rule of Law: Absence of Corruption. In this paper we show that Corruption Index by the International Country Risk Guide and Absence of Corruption Index are not constructively valid and, therefore, are not suitable for the use in scholarly research. We also show that all indices provide poor estimates of a corruption level in the highly corrupted group of countries