Countries by Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank

Ranking 2023

Values shown in %.

Analysis

Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank measures where a country stands relative to all others on perceptions of corruption, expressed as a percentage from 0 to 100, where higher values indicate better control of corruption. The indicator code is CC.PER.RNK, drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators for the 2023 data year. The underlying data summarizes views on governance quality from enterprise, citizen, and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. Governance, as defined in the source, consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised, including the process by which governments are selected, monitored, and replaced. The dataset covers 205 countries, all with data from within the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official. No extreme outliers were detected using a 3-standard-deviation threshold, and average year-over-year change across countries is 9.4%, indicating moderate but not volatile movement. The full range runs from 0.00 to 100.00, a spread of the entire possible distribution.

The top of the ranking is concentrated in Northern Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Denmark ranks first at 100%, followed by Finland (99.53%, rank 2), Norway (99.06%, rank 3), New Zealand (98.58%, rank 4), and Singapore (98.11%, rank 5). Sweden, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fill ranks 6 through 9, all above 96%. Australia rounds out the top 10 at 95.75%. Notably, Seychelles (rank 14, 93.87%) and Bhutan (rank 20, 91.04%) appear in this upper tier alongside predominantly high-income countries, making them notable placements from their respective regions. Uruguay (rank 17, 92.45%) stands out as the highest-ranked country in Latin America.

The middle of the distribution contains several counterintuitive placements. Six territories including American Samoa, Andorra, Bermuda, Guam, Monaco, and San Marino share rank 27 with identical scores of 87.74%, reflecting a tied grouping within the dataset. Bulgaria sits exactly at the median at rank 100 with a score of 50.00%. In the lower half, China ranks 91st at 54.25%, while Cuba ranks 95th at 52.36%, both sitting close to the midpoint rather than near the bottom. At the lower end of the distribution, Somalia ranks 203rd at 0.94%, Syria 204th at 0.47%, and South Sudan last at 0.00%. Venezuela (rank 202, 1.42%) and Yemen (rank 201, 1.89%) also fall in the bottom five.

This metric carries several limitations specific to its construction. Because it is a percentile rank, a country's score depends on the full distribution of all countries included; a change in one country's score can shift the rank of others even if their underlying governance did not change. The measure reflects perceptions of corruption drawn from surveys rather than directly observed corruption levels, meaning it can be influenced by respondent biases, media coverage, or changes in survey methodology. Territories and special administrative regions such as Guam, Macao SAR, Hong Kong SAR, and Puerto Rico are included alongside sovereign states, which can complicate cross-country comparisons. Countries with very small populations or limited survey coverage may have less reliable estimates. The tied scores at rank 27 across six distinct territories suggest that some entries in the dataset may reflect imputed or proxied values rather than independently collected observations.

Methodology

The metric is Control of Corruption: Percentile Rank, indicator code CC.PER.RNK, sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators for the reference year 2023. The unit is percentage (%), where higher values indicate better control of corruption relative to all other countries in the dataset. The source definition states that the Worldwide Governance Indicators are a research dataset summarizing the views on the quality of governance provided by a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, mo[nitored, and replaced]. The dataset covers 205 countries, all of which have data from within the last seven years, representing 100% recency coverage. All 205 datapoints are classified as official quality. No extreme outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation threshold. The average year-over-year change is 9.4%, well below the 50% volatility threshold. Scores range from 0.00 to 100.00 across the full dataset. As a percentile rank, this indicator reflects relative positioning within the sample rather than an absolute measure of corruption, and results are sensitive to changes in country composition and survey methodology across years.

Sources

• World Bank