I, too, was surprised at this but widespread corruption actually has this effect. As prosecutability goes down, you just move further down the market. In the limit, you pay the President $50 to get out of a $80 parking ticket. He can’t exactly charge you $100k for that privilege. It’s not the market clearing price. Previously he was limited by the enforcement side so the ask price was nowhere near the bid price.

Now, prosecution immune, he can access the remainder of the market.

I think this is one big reason why bribes are commonplace in India at all levels while they are reserved only for the most profitable of endeavours in the US - enforcement. Consequently, the relative pricing matches that.

I suppose one realization is that a corruption index could look at the price of the cheapest government corruption as a proxy for how widespread it is.