The Price of Paying Bribes

As I look around Mexico City, I see some great improvement in economic conditions...more construction, more jobs, less pirating, anti-corruption campaigns, even an anti-corruption hotline. But this report comes as a sobering reminder of the need for a cultural transformation. In 2007, Mexicans spent $2.6 billion in bribes (that's right...billion).

The nonprofit group Transparency Mexico conducted the study, which showed that 197 million bribes were paid during the year. It seems that an honesty hotline doesn't do much good when it's not the officials who are demanding bribes but the citizens who are offering them.