I was just listening to a talk by Stephen Kotkin were he mentioned corruption. He said corruption is not binary. Instead, it's a continuum. The question is how much of the money a public servant spends will actually end up in the desired outcome. In China, he said, maybe 20% will end up in the pockets of the public servant while the other 80% is spent on the road. In Nigeria, he said, everything will go to the servant and there will be no road.
This continuum hides one thing: overbidding in terms of project cost and underdelivery in terms of quality. At least in US, quality is maintained, while costing 300% more (look at any subway, rail projects). In the third world, projects are overbid, also underdeliver in terms of quality. No quality control at all.
Corruption is multidimensional. There's the size. There's the nature of the parties involved. There's the question of whether it's legal or illegal - which itself as a continuum as my lawyer girlfriend always reminds me
Source: https://youtu.be/ZD8BhZEJcjI at around 1:00:00.