The Bribe Payers' Index is a classification of 30 exporting countries, based on the premises of bribe-giving by companies, to parties outside their contries of origin. The survey examines bribe-giving by companies based in one of the 30 main exporting countries (at the regional or global level). The index is based on two questions, addressed to executives in different companies. The questions refer to different practices of foreign companies in their countries. To evaluate the bribe offer, the executives are asked the following questions:

? From the list of countries below, please select the nationalities of the foreign companies that have a significant level of business in your countries.
? In your experience, to what extent do companies from selected countries make unofficial payments or give bribes? Based on collected answers, countries are classified on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = bribe is a common occurrence, 10 = there is no bribe). The average for each country is calculated based on the number of evaluations offered by respondents, without including evaluations for own countries. Countries are classified based on the average scores obtained by each country.

The index is based on the Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) done by the World Business Forum. The World Business Forum is responsible for the coordination of the research and control of data quality, but the Forum relies on a network of insititutes that perform the research at local level. The Forum's partners include business departments of national universities, independent research centers and/or business organizations.

Only three editions of the BPI were completed by the year 2007, in 1999, 2002 and 2006, respectively. To read the 1999 BPI, click here. 

Romania has not been so far included in this index, as it is not a leading exporting country, at the regional or international level.


The countries included in the index are leading exporters at the regional or international level, whose combined exports in 2005 amounted to 82% of the total volume of exports worldwide.

Indexes