The practice of “la mordida” — the bribe — is as much a part of Mexican culture as tequila and tortillas. To get by, one makes no bones about slipping that cop a 20 peso bill to let you off for a minor traffic violation. After all, that’s why he stopped you in the first place. And while bribes and corruption seem in and of themselves bad enough, one expert says they are to blame for poverty and lack of economic growth in Mexico:

The culture of tolerance of “mordidas”, bribes and extortion maintains the country in poverty and makes it lose growth and investment opportunities. Families with the lowest income are the ones that feel it the most, and spend up to a quarter of their salaries on bribes when attempting to get goods or services from the State.

This startling revelation comes from the Mexican Secretary of Civil Service, Germán Martínez Cázares, in a speech at the international conference “Ethics in Civil Service and the Battle Against Corruption”, which took place this week in Mexico. Martínez Cázares says that families earning minimum wage are likely to spend up to 24% of their total income on bribes.

Martínez Cázares also says that it’s not just those who enter into bribes who pay the price for corruption — it’s the entire country:

“All Mexicans pay for corruption because the country has a risk tax for foreign investment of 3.08%. This means that when a foreign business invests in Mexico or some entity loans money to the Mexican government, the government, through public resources, must pay the loan back plus 3% interest for the risk implied in investing money in the country. Corruption makes life more expensive.

According to this study (an analysis of the indexes of corruption published by The Economist magazine), the level of corruption translated into a an implicit cost for businesses equivalent to a tax of 15%.”

How can the vicious cycle end? I know that at least in the case of police in Mexico, if you recruit people with limited education in order to pay them as little as possible, it’s pretty much impossible to ask that they not fall into corruption. Perhaps the solution might be to start thinking about ways to provide for civil servants so that they don’t have to go outside the realm of the law to provide for their families.

Via / Nuevo Excelsior