Higher rural population share linked to worse executive corruption
Comparing Executive corruption index with Population - Est. & Proj. — Rural population, per unit of GDP across 150 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.62
- Holding size constant
- +0.45
- Countries compared
- 150
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Rural areas may face weaker institutional oversight, enabling corruption, while urbanization often correlates with stronger governance. However, reverse causality or omitted factors like education levels could also explain the link.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. Correlation does not imply causation, and unmeasured confounders like institutional quality may drive both indicators.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.