Russia's Corruption Generates Equivalent Of 50% GDP

More interesting details: <a href="http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15369167&#38;PageNum=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15369167&#38...</a><p>"The corruption situation is so dramatic that the report authors singled out corruption-related losses of Russian economy. They estimated these losses at about 50% expenses of Russian businesspeople. Some 80% of current assets in the education system are shadowy, that is to say mainly related to the corruption, and this figure reaches 90% in state and municipal services."

Interesting story - but did anyone else find this headline non-sensical? How can corruption <i>generate</i> a percent of GDP?<p>I'm guessing they meant 50% of GDP is in black markets, or that 50% of business expenses go to bribing people.

Russia isn't the only country that has a large underground economy:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_economy#Comparison_with_regular_economy" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_economy#Comparison_...</a><p>(The figures are a bit dated, but still interesting.)