What causes corruption is, first, a clear opportunity,
such as the envelope of cash sitting in the parking
lot. This kind of opportunity in the government could
be a government-run mining company with no competitors,
or a long list of licenses and fees required
for shipping goods into or out of the country.
Second, what causes corruption is little chance of
getting caught. This lack of accountability comes primarily
from a) a lack of transparency, for example,
when public officials do not inform about or explain
what they are doing, including a declaration of their
wealth, houses, and cars and b) weak enforcement,
when law agencies do not impose sanctions on power
holders who have violated their public duties. This is
the case, for example, when judges are in the pay of
the ruling party or there are too few police officers
to enforce the law.
Third, what causes corruption is bad incentives,
such as a clerk not earning enough to live on or not
being sure that he will have a job tomorrow so that
he supplements his income with bribes. In extreme
cases, people do not have an incentive to perform
their official duties, but actually pay for their jobs
with the understanding they will make money
through bribes. For example, look at the following
table showing public sector jobs that are “sold” in
three different countries.
Fourth, what causes corruption is attitudes or circumstances
that make average people disregard the
law. People may try to get around laws of a government
they consider illegitimate (for example, not paying
taxes to the apartheid government in South
Africa). Poverty or scarcity of goods (such as medicine)
may also push people to live outside the law.
So, corruption is not just about ethics. It’s also
about how the government is set up and managed.
