Corruption Bias and Information: A Study in the Lab

Abstract

Our study examines whether actual corruption, measured by individuals direct experience of corruption episodes (bribery), matches their perceptions of the phenomenon. Our experimental participants play a repeated public good game with mandatory minimum contribution and are given the possibility to bribe a computerized bureaucrat in order to free-ride. We elicit beliefs about the perceived level of corruptibility of the bureaucrat and others' corruption attempts.We study participants' willingness to corrupt and the gap between perceived and actual corruption under two information conditions. Results show that, although anonymous, spreading news about an attempt of corruption is enough to discourage such attempts, lowering the corruption rate. Consequently, when receiving no information, participants expect others to corrupt more, raising the index of perceived corruption.

Business’ Attitudes Towards Corruption in Selected Central European Countries

“…François et al (2023) could not confirm the relationship between perceived and actual corruption, but found a relationship between municipality size and perceived corruption in France. Corrado et al (2021) published the results of an experiment that showed that corruption perceptions are strongly influenced by available information and that actors who do not have information about bribery attempts are more likely to offer bribes. Some research (Melgar et al, 2010) suggests that perceptions of corruption can do more harm than corruption itself by generating mistrust.…”