The wrong exam

How a reassuring institutional score can obscure the markets it is supposed to address.

The headline is real. The question is what it measures. Select the market comparison to see why an institutional score cannot be treated as a market outcome.

Inspect the measure

What does the resilience score hide?

6.28institutional resilience

4.74criminality

Compare two crime markets

These are correlations between overall resilience and individual criminal markets in the Index data, as reported in AU's essay. The positive cyber figure may partly reflect better detection and reporting.

Association with overall resilience
Market	Correlation	Interpretation
Financial crime	−0.240	Weak negative association
Cyber-dependent crime	+0.324	Positive association in reported data

Limit. Cross-country correlation is not a causal estimate. It does not prove that institutions cause, fail to reduce, or worsen either market. Differences in detection and reporting require a separate test.

Observed

What the Index reports

Europe’s 2025 criminality and resilience scores are 4.74 and 6.28. AU’s essay reports correlations of −0.240 for financial crime and +0.324 for cyber-dependent crime against overall resilience.

Rival reading

Better states see more

Detection and reporting could raise measured cyber crime even if underlying harm were lower. A country-level and longitudinal comparison would help separate visibility from outcome.

Read the full essay ↗

Source and status: AU essay, 31 August 2026, citing the Global Organized Crime Index 2025. Correlations are descriptive, not causal.