At The Future Cities Institute we have been investigating the relationships between the hi-tech sectors of hardware, software and services, and economic productivity, to provide better understanding for policy makers, industry, and non-government organisations on how these sectors can be developed to support economic growth and national competitiveness.
In working with these groups we are sometimes asked about the relationships between these hi-tech sectors, and other ‘social indicators’ so I thought I would share some preliminary results using two recently released social indexes; the UNDP Human Development Report for 2011 which is an alternative way of measuring countries’ prosperity and well-being, and the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International, which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 183 countries and territories around the world.
When comparing the maturity of local software economies with both these indexes, we found that Local Software Economy Maturity was more strongly correlated with the Corruption Perceptions Index (.715) than the Human Development Index (.640).
Remember this does not suggest cause and effect, just a signicant relationship. However, it may support the hypothesis that the use of software to provide better access to government processes by citizens (eGovernment) may have an impact on perceived corruption deduction. Here’s the plot of this relationship across 52 countries:

©Copyright Malcolm J Fraser 2011, The Future Cities Institute Inc.