New Zealand prides itself as being the least corrupt in the world however this is a perception an perceptions as in this case are often wrong.
Please visit the blog to see the issues surrounding corruption in New Zealand and especially the issues faced if you dare blow the whistle.
The most common definition is that corruption consists in the misuse of public power for private benefits.
The survey by Andvig et al (2000, 15 ff.) identifies six forms of corruption:
- bribery, defined as the payment (the bribe) interchanged in a corrupt transaction—according to Rose-Ackerman (1996) bribes are paid to receive benefits or to avoid costs;
- embezzlement, which is theft of resources by those who have the responsibility to administer them—described in Shleifer and Vishny (1993) as corruption with theft;
- fraud, defined as an economic crime involving trickery, swindle or deceit, like deliberate falsification, manipulation or embezzlement of information;
- extortion, that is money or resources extracted by the use of coercion,violence or threats;
- favouritism, is the abuse of power which implies a corrupted distribution of resources and thus a violation of allocative efficiency, and
- nepotism,as a special form of favouritism, where decision are biased in favour of family or clan members.