Bribery
Jakob Svensson has found that socialist and recently socialist economies show higher levels of corruption than others. Among the factors he has tested for correlation with corruption is (1) the overall education level of the adult population, (2) openness to imports (measured by imports as a proportion of GDP), which is linked with opportunities for smuggling, (3) freedom of the press (as ranked by Freedom House), on the hypothesis that independent journalists will expose, and thereby curtail, corruption, (4) the number of days needed to start a business, a proxy for the number of permits required, and therefore red tape. He found clear correlations between all these variables and the overall level of corruption.
Among the many factors correlated with the level of corruption in a country, one stands out: where there is a lot of government, there is a lot of bribery.
“How to grease a palm,” The Economist