Corruption Quantified

Every year, Transparency International puts out its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which aggregates polls and data relating to government corruption, and assigns each country a numerical ranking from one to ten, one being the lowest score and ten the highest.  According to the CPI, the least corrupt country is New Zealand, clocking in at 9.4; the most corrupt is Somalia, with a paltry 1.1.  The U.S. comes in with a respectable 7.5, which is much, much better than I'd have thought.  Now, this is obviously very imprecise work.  Countries go up and down in ranking every year, and there's no way to tell if they're more or less corrupt, or if the data is simply more or less accurate.  But TI does their homework, and I think this is potentially useful as a rough guide.  It's also interesting to me that it roughly corresponds with the Quality of Life Index, and DOES NOT correspond to GDP rankings.  Again, this isn't science or anything, but it's interesting to think about, and interactive maps are always a fun waste of time.