Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16596
Authors: Alex Armand; Alexander Coutts; Pedro C. Vicente; Inês Vilela
Abstract: Corruption is often harmful for economic development, yet it is difficult to measure due to its illicit nature. We propose a novel corruption game to characterize the interaction between actual political leaders and citizens, and implement it in Northern Mozambique. Contrary to the game-theoretic prediction, both leaders and citizens engage in corruption. Importantly, corruption in the game is correlated with real-world corruption by leaders: citizens send bribes to leaders whom we observe appropriating community money, and these leaders are likely to reciprocate the bribes. In corrupt behavior, we identify an important trust dimension captured by a standard trust game.
Keywords: corruption; game; trust; lab-in-the-field; citizen; political leader; incentives; behavior; elite capture
JEL Codes: D10; D70; D72; D73; C90
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| citizens send bribes (D73) | leaders appropriate community funds (D70) |
| leaders appropriate community funds (D70) | citizens send larger bribes (D73) |
| citizens' trust in leaders (D73) | citizens' bribery behavior (D72) |