It has at times been argued by various people that bribes actually make economies work more efficiently. For example, I once met a person in Chicago (admittedly, back in the late 1960s) who claimed that it cost less per square foot to build a building there than in any other major city (implying that bribes greased the bureaucratic gears).
I've never been convinced by the argument. Bribes involve uncertainty and risk and hence dramatically increase transaction costs. And these higher transaction costs impede efficient exchange and economic growth.
Here is some indicative evidence supporting this proposition (from The Economist).
It isn't just the corruption and the bribes that are a problem, however. It is the unholy alliance between a bribe-based system and a rigid and complex bureaucracy that impedes growth and development. The only reason (okay, an important reason) bribery is deemed efficient and useful by so many people is that bureaus have been created that erect numerous roadblocks to efficient exchange, and bribes are useful for circumventing these roadblocks.
If so, then one way to promote economic growth is to reduce the size and obstructiveness (if that's a word) of the bureaus that create the incentives for bribery in the first place. But, of course, that is easier said than done. The bureaucrats in these agencies have likely paid for the right to extract bribes from other people; these bureaucrats have a very strong vested interest in maintaining a bribe-based economy. Breaking down these vested interests will not be easy.
Apparently India and Mexico are moving in the direction of reducing the importance of paying bribes in their economies, and it will be interesting to see if they can persist in these developments. At the same time, I will be quite surprised if the incidence of bribe-paying doesn't increase in Venezuela. After all gubmnt price controls are another major reason for the use of bribes.