New frontiers in diagnosing and combating corruption

Corruption is problematic when policies encourage it and institutional controls are weak. Diagnosing corruption, and understanding its causes and consequences, allows countries to overcome their policy and institutional weaknesses and implement effective anti-corruption strategies. This note focuses on the new diagnostic tools that have been developed and implemented in Albania, Georgia and Latvia, with the support of the World Bank, and which include cross-country analyses of data on perceptions of corruption against institutional and other correlates. It explains how empirical surveys can inform and transform the policy dialogue, so that a workable anti-corruption agenda can be established. It also highlights challenges in performing these surveys, and in transforming survey results into priorities for institutional reform.