Tag Archives: experiment

Does Corruption Flourish in a “Culture of Corruption”?

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A common intuition about corruption is that individuals are more likely to engage in corruption when they witness others committing corrupt acts without facing serious consequences—in other words, a “culture of corruption” can be self-perpetuating (see here and here), and the perception or belief that corruption is widespread can itself be a cause of corruption. While compelling, this intuition has not been subjected to much empirical scrutiny. While there does seem to be some evidence of an association between individuals’ perceptions of the prevalence of domestic corruption and those individuals’ inclination to act corruptly, the research on this topic is relatively thin.

In a recent paper, a group of academics (Israel Waismel-Manor, Patricia Moy, Rico Neumann, and Moran Shechnick) weighed in, presenting the results of a controlled lab experiment that sought to assess whether news about corruption by public officials affected individuals’ incentives to behave dishonestly. The study was conducted in Israel, and participants were required first to watch a short television news segment. The treatment group’s segment revolved around an Israeli mayor suspected of certain corrupt acts, while the control group’s segment was unrelated to corruption. The participants were also given a short quiz about the segment they’d seen, and half of the participants in each group were offered a monetary reward if they answered all the questions correctly; they were told “to answer all questions from memory” and not look anything up on the internet. However, unbeknownst to the participants, one of the questions could not be answered without doing additional searches, so the researchers could use the answer to this question to identify those participants who cheated on the test. The real goal of the study (of which participants were not aware) was to see whether exposure to the corruption news story (alone or in combination with the financial incentive) affected participants’ likelihood of cheating.

Unsurprisingly, participants who were offered money for answering all questions correctly cheated far more often, regardless of which news story they watched. The study’s authors seem to have expected that those participants who watched the corruption-related story would also cheat more (holding constant whether they had financial incentives to answer questions correctly). But this did not occur: Participants who watched the news segment involving a mayor suspected of corruption did not cheat in statistically significantly higher rates than those who watched the other, unrelated-to-corruption segment. The researchers suggested that perhaps the reason was that Israelis had been inundated with so much news about official corruption around the time of the experiment (which took place in 2019), particularly in connection with the investigation and prosecution of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior politicians (see here, here, and here), that the marginal impact of exposure to additional news about corruption, in the form of this one story, would not have much impact.

While that explanation is plausible, I have some other concerns about the research’s design and methodology, which make me question whether this experiment was in fact a good way to assess the “culture of corruption” hypothesis.

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The More You Know About Chief Prosecutors, the Less You Trust Their Office?

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Prosecuting elected officials for corruption is often an uphill battle. The power and resources of the defendants, combined with the general difficulty of proving corrupt deeds (which usually happen behind closed doors), make it difficult to secure convictions. Moreover, prosecutors who bring charges against elected officials frequently face accusations that the decision to prosecute was politically motivated or biased. Such accusations, which are often fueled by the politicians themselves, have potential grave consequences. Not only can they result in public distrust in particular criminal proceedings against politicians, but also—and perhaps more importantly—these accusations can undermine the legitimacy of the legal system more broadly.

Some public criticism—fair or unfair—of prosecutors is inevitable. However, prosecutors can (and should) try to minimize the harmful effects such criticism might have on the overall legitimacy of the institutions of justice. How can they do so? In a recent and highly recommended article, Ori Aronson, Julia Elad-Strenger, Thomas Kessler, and Yuval Feldman suggest that one way prosecutors can increase the perception that their offices and investigations are objective and unbiased is by refraining from highlighting the personal traits or biographical details of the individuals who lead those offices. To use the jargon of the authors, “non-personalization” of prosecutors’ offices is superior to their “personalization,” at least in terms of offices’ perceived objectivity. The authors base this conclusion on a series of experiments involving reactions to decisions made by Israel’s head of prosecution—former Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit—concerning the corruption allegations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (a topic that was featured on the blog numerous times; see, for example, here, here, and here).

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Guest Post: Expert Interviews on Corruption Control in Latin America

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Today’s guest post is from Columbia University Professor Paul Lagunes, who this year is also a Visiting Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy:

Elections in Latin America are freer and fairer than they used to be, and, with rare exceptions, political power in the region is no longer monopolized by a single individual, junta, or party. From Chile to Mexico, legal reforms have promoted higher levels of government transparency and citizen participation. But in spite of these improvements, the region continues to grapple with systemic corruption. Not only are individuals asked to pay bribes by lower-level government officials, but scandals such as Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) in Brazil, La Estafa Maestra (“The Master Fraud”) in Mexico, and La Línea (“The Line”) in Guatemala have revealed grand corruption at the most senior levels, making the fight against corruption a top priority for the region.

Prompted by these concerns, I contributed to organizing a conference at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy on corruption control in Latin America, which has already been featured (with links to the conference videos) on this blog. Some of the conference panelists stayed long enough that we were able to interview them about their important work. Tony Payan, my colleague at the Baker Institute and an expert on U.S.-Mexico border issues, agreed to conduct the interviews.

The videos of these interviews are now publicly available, and are well worth viewing for those interested in hearing a diverse range of perspectives on the corruption challenges currently facing Latin America. In this post I will provide links to the interviews as well as a brief summary of their content. (There’s also an online website, where you can find all the interviews, here.) Continue reading →

The Importance of Personnel Selection in Promoting Government Integrity: Some Evidence from India

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Much of the focus in combating corruption in government bureaucracies focuses on creating the right incentives for public servants after they’ve assumed their positions.  The goal is usually to create a system of rewards and punishments – and perhaps also a professional culture – that incentivizes honest behavior and deters wrongdoing.  Creating those incentives is obviously crucial, but it’s also important not to neglect the selection process – choosing who gets to become a civil servant or public official in the first place.  After all, it’s probably a lot easier to help a basically honest person to resist temptation than it is to discourage a venal opportunist from abusing her position.  Moreover, selecting the wrong people into public service can create a vicious cycle: a government agency with a reputation for corruption will tend to attract individuals who more interested in abusing their positions, while an agency with a reputation for probity will be more likely to attract individuals interested in serving the public good.

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