Corruption can be difficult to avoid-the checkpoint po-liceman reluctant to return your passport; the apparatchik behind the desk who pushes your papers to the bottom of the pile; the customs officer painfully slow to use his rubber stamp-but it is not easy to measure. Vast amounts of money flow through public hands. How much is diverted into private pockets? Kautilya, a statesman and scholar in ancient India, thought it impossible to tell, "just as fish moving under water cannot possibly be found out either as drinking or not drinking water". This would not satisfy Paul Wolfowitz, the World Bank's president, who is determined to fight corruption in borrowing coun-tries.Fortunately, a growing number of economists, not least at the bank, are turning to the tricky task of quantifying corruption. With some ingenuity, they are striving to measure how much water civil servants are drinking.
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