In the last decade and a half, development scholars and practitioners have increasingly focused on corruption as a development issue. Corruption has been identified both as an obstacle to development and to the effective use of development assistance. We will examine the literature on the causes and consequences of, and solutions to, corruption with two aims: first, to understand more about corruption and second, to understand the assumptions and mental models of the commentators, who include economists, lawyers, political economists, political scientists and policymakers. We will also consider a few regional examples; and examine some of the problems with collecting and using data on corruption.