Financial Transparency Coalition

For any act of corruption, there is a demand—that is, a venal official who is willing to accept a bribe—but there is also a supply—an individual or business willing to supply it. The dualistic nature of corruption is a headache, particularly for public individuals and institutions interested in stemming the harmful practice. For example, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh has commented on the difficulty for environmental regulators inIndia to check violations of green controls. He noted "I can control the demand for corruption but someone has to control the supply of corruption too. I cannot stop that." Fortunately, as a...

Companies often act charitably for reasons of self-interest. Most often they donate to charities for the public-image benefit. The perfect example is Product(Red), which has partnered with major corporations including American Express, Gap, Converse, Starbucks, Apple, Dell and Hallmark. These companies donate a portion of their profits from their sales of RED products to the Global Fund. In return they get a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction for their good deed. Or…they get a lot of good press, which (hopefully, for them at least) translates into a bigger bottom line. In fact, as theories go, the evidence supports the latter...

Since 1968, India has been trying to create a lokpal, an independent ombudsman body that would investigate claims of corruption against politicians and bureaucrats without government approval. The idea is that the body would have the government’s power of legitimacy, but enough independence that it would be able to hold corrupt officials accountable. In 1968 India's lower house passed a bill that would create the lokpal, aptly named the lokpal bill, but it did not reach the upper house. India’s government tried again, and again, and again. Between 1971 and 2008 India’s parliament introduced ten versions of the lokpal...

“Art is a revolt against fate.” It was André Malraux, a French adventurer who traveled China in the 1930s, who said that. Malraux believed art is more than just a source of “aesthetic pleasure.” His most enduring concept was "le musée imaginaire" or "the museum without walls", which asserted that art could be more powerful as an experience outside the traditional confines of museums. At the moment China is headed down a crash course with its own fate. China has had massive problems with bribery, corruption, and illicit financial flows for years. In fact illicit outflows from the People’s Republic of China...