Today, Transparency International released its

annual Corruption

Perceptions Index. This year, New Zealand and Denmark tied for

the least corrupt countries in the world, and Somalia, North Korea,

and Afghanistan were all given the same ranking at the bottom.



Unsurprisingly, conflict areas have

experienced worsening corruption, and corruption remains high

in much of the Middle East and Africa.

Map from the 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index below:

While much of the survey’s findings might not be especially

striking, it is worth pointing out that Botswana has once again

been ranked as the least corrupt country in Africa. This year,

Botswana was ranked as less corrupt than many countries in Europe

such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece (which has improved upon

its 2012 score).

A press

release from the government of Botswana cites a number of

bodies as contributing factors to Botswana’s comparatively

impressive ranking:

Botswana’s success in the annual survey over the years has been

attributed to our zero tolerance approach to corruption buttressed

by the putting into place of multiple oversight institution, such

as the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), Public

Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB), the Competition

Authority and the Financial Intelligence Agency.

Botswana, as well as being the least corrupt country in Africa,

is also one of Africa’s freest economies. This year, the Heritage

Foundation ranked Botswana as the 30th most economically free

country in the world in their annual Index of Economic

Freedom (the only African country to rank higher than Botswana

in this index was the island nation of Mauritius).

As

Scott Beaulier, Associate Professor of Economics at Troy

University, has pointed out, some of the early market reforms

adopted by Botswana’s first president, Seretse Khama, were

motivated in part by a desire to reduce corruption (emphasis

mine):

Unlike other African leaders, Khama’s program simultaneously

adopted pro-market policies on several important margins. For

example, Khama’s new government promised low and stable taxes to

mining companies. His government opened the doors both to trade and

to people. Furthermore, he kept marginal income taxes low

to deter tax evasion and corruption.

It should not be a surprise that there is a relationship between

economic freedom and corruption, as Ambassador Terry Miller and

Anthony B. Kim pointed out in Chapter

1 of the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic

Freedom:

Corruption can infect all parts of an economy; there is a direct

relationship between the extent of government regulation or other

government intervention in economic activity and the amount of

corruption. Almost any government regulation can provide an

opportunity for bribery or graft. In addition, a government

regulation or restriction in one area may create an informal market

in another. For example, a country with high barriers to trade may

have laws that protect its domestic market and prevent the import

of foreign goods, but these barriers create incentives for

smuggling and a black market for the restricted products.

More from Reason.com on Africa, corruption, and capitalism

here, here, and here.