• Corruption is broadly defined as “the misuse of public power for private gain.” (Rose-
  Ackerman 1999). Klitgaard’s widely-cited formula explains the demand side of
  corruption: corruption equals monopoly plus discretion minus accountability (Klitgaard,
  1988). According to this formula, corruption flourishes when (1) government officials
  hold a monopoly over a good or service, (2) have discretion over how that good or
  service can be allocated, and (3) oversight and accountabilities are absent (Klitgaard,
  1988; Graycar & Sidebottom, 2012).
  Corruption has been found to be both the cause and the consequence of the erosion of
  trust in both other people and in government ins
• titutions. (Rose-Ackerman 1999). More
• than $1 trillion, or about 3% of the worl
• d gross domestic product (GDP) goes to paying
  bribes (Mazur and Aggarwal, 2015; World Bank, 2017). There is a virtual consensus
  among economists that corruption is economically inefficient and associated with
  negative over-all economic activity (Bose, 2010). Interestingly, corruption is both mostcommon and least inefficient in autocracies, the point being that an autocrat is usually in
  the best position to deliver on the object of a corrupt payment (Alon, 2016). And while
  corruption stunts economic growth in all societies, it is most harmful in societies with
  weak governments transitioning from autocracy toward democracy, sometimes called
  anocracies (Alon).
  While it is impossible to determine the precise level of corruption, a 1997 World Bank
  estimate placed the total corruption involved in international trade at $80 billion per year
  (Walsh, 1998). A World Bank survey of 3600 firms in sixty-nine countries found that
  40% of those businesses pay bribes. In industrial countries, 15% of businesses were
  found to pay bribes, but in the former Soviet Union, this figure jumped to over 60%
  (Omestad, 1998).