In 2006, Cambodia was ranked the 13th most corrupt nation among a field of 163 countries. It is estimated that $330 million in U.S. dollars is spent by Cambodia's private sector in the form of so-called "unofficial fees," which consist of bribes and kickbacks to various government officials. Other forms of corruption include kickbacks to employers and hiring agents; businesses buying or renting children from poor parents; land-grabbing; and various types of corruption in education, health care, and housing. Numerous factors are responsible for Cambodia's pervasive corruption. These include a cumbersome and highly politicized bureaucracy; a lack of transparency in the regulatory administration; weak internal and external accountability mechanisms; low civil service salaries (less than 20 percent of the living wage); failure to control nepotism and conflict of interest in both the public and private sectors; failure to produce and implement an effective anticorruption law that requires fiscal asset disclosure by public officials; and a low level of public access to official information or involvement in the political process. Other factors are a political culture that uses the rhetoric of anticorruption but fails to implement effective anticorruption measures and failure to enact a freedom-of-information law. This study examined the impact of corruption on Cambodia's economy and proposes policies and strategies for controlling crime and corruption in Cambodia. 38 references