Kathmandu, March 29 -- Corruption is conventionally - and misleadingly - measured as a one-dimensional problem. Global corruption indices, including Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the World Bank's Control of Corruption Index, assign a single score to countries.

These metrics consistently show that rich countries are 'very clean' while poor countries are 'highly corrupt'. For example, the 2023 CPI ranks the United Kingdom (scoring 71) as the world's 20th least corrupt country, much cleaner than China (42) and Brazil (36). Most CPI users, including media outlets, companies, and analysts, interpret these numbers as a fact.

But are richer countries really less corrupt than poorer ones? One-dimensional m...