Economic Freedom and Transparency in Latin America: Measuring Corruption Power Parity (CPP)

This report is divided in two parts: firstly, it relates the index of economic freedom from Fraser Institute with the corruption perception index made by Transparency International for all the countries in general and for Latin America in particular. Secondly, this special research tries to measure the degree of Corruption Power Parity (CPP) by comparing the World Gross Product measured in nominal dollars (GDP) versus the World Product measured in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Results are transcendent: Besides telling us that poor countries are less poor, the World Product corrected by PPP also tells us that the degree of corruption is higher not only due to the fact that it is part of a larger World Product but, mainly, due to the fact that it is a larger porcentual part of such real product.

Pedro Isern is President of the Centre for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL). He has a Master in Political Philosophy (London School of Economics and Political Sciences), a Master in Economics and Political Science (ESEADE, Argentina) and he is a B.A. in Political Sciences (San Andres University). He contributed with the book “Mitos del Milenio. El fin del trabajoy los nuevos profetas del Apocalipsis” (March 2004, CADAL / TIMBRO).

The author would like to thank the contribution of Alejandro Toso and Hernán Alberro.