Estimating the actual cost of corruption to society is daunting due to its profound, ubiquitous and systematic impact on various realms of the socioeconomic life of a nation. Nonetheless, even conservative approximations can yield earth-shaking numbers.

As one way to estimate the monetary loss to corruption, EMIR Research used an approach similar to that in the study by Dreher, Kotsogiannis and McCorriston in 2007...