structural:summarization, stylistic:tone, information:highlighting
Causes

Much of existing literature focuses on explicit corrupt actions like bribery and embezzlement, endemic in poor countries (see below). For "money in politics," the causes are very different and largely ignored in conventional literature. For example, the UK is a developed economy with a robust democracy, and yet London is a hub for money laundering. In a critique of the failures and politics leading up to the US financial crisis, a Stanford financial economist noted, "In the real world, it turned out, important economic outcomes are often the consequences of political forces. During 2010, people within regulatory bodies told me privately that false and misleading claims were affecting key policy decisions... I saw confusion, willful blindness, political forces, various and sometimes subtle forms of corruption, and moral disengagement, first hand."

Per R. Klitgaard corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than the penalty multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted.

Since a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to corruption, a fourth variable of "morality" or "integrity" has been introduced by others. The moral dimension has an intrinsic component and refers to a "mentality problem", and an extrinsic component referring to circumstances like poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them search for "alternative" solutions.

According to a 2017 survey study, the following factors have been attributed as causes of corruption:

It has been noted that in a comparison of the most corrupt with the least corrupt countries, the former group contains nations with huge socio-economic inequalities, and the latter contains nations with a high degree of social and economic justice.

Social norms have been posited as an explanation for why some environments are corrupt and others are not.