Gold and graft: how the top producers rank on the CPI

Countries rich in natural resources are often corrupt, or so it seems.

Yesterday we looked at the top oil producing nations.

Their average rank on the corruption perceptions index was 90, putting the group in the bottom half.

How about gold-producing countries?

Even with New Zealand — ranked #1 on the CPI — their average rank is 88, just above the half-way point.

The gold list again raises the question whether natural resources stimulate greed and corruption and curse the country where they’re found. Or whether natural riches make a corrupt country more corrupt but don’t change straight shooters like New Zealand, Canada, and Australia.

Here are the top gold-producing countries with their CPI rank in parentheses:

1    China (80)
2    United States (19)
3    Australia (7)
4    South Africa (69)
5    Russia (133)
6    Peru (83)
7    Indonesia (118)
8    Canada (9)
9    Uzbekistan (170)
10    Ghana (64)
11    Papua New Guinea (150)
12    Brazil (69)
13    Mexico (105)
14    Colombia (94)
15    Argentina (102)
16    Mali (105)
17    Chile (20)
18    Tanzania (102)
19    Philippines (105)
20    Kazakhstan (133)
21    Guinea (154)
22    Kyrgyzstan (154)
23    Burkina Faso (83)
24    New Zealand (1)
25    Suriname (88)