ABSTRACT
Political corruption, the misuse of public power for private material gain, is important as an indicator that institutions of governance fall short of the Weberian paradigm of political systems that operate predictably by bureaucrats impersonally applying rules and laws and policy-makers accepting their constraints when making decisions.1 The cash cost is higher when corruption involves large government purchases, but the number of people affected is much greater when corruption involves health care and education services affecting many millions of citizens. In the former case, the cost of wholesale corruption is indirectly distributed and in small sums to individuals in the population, whereas in the case of ‘retail’ corruption the payer of the bribe bears the whole burden. In so far as decisions affected by corruption result in the misallocation or waste of public funds or in illegal and criminal activities that are inefficient and costly, then corruption reduces the benefits of economic growth to society as a whole. This is a problem of particular importance in developing countries.2
