Letting the Briber Go Free: An Experiment on Mitigating Harassment Bribes

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of using asymmetric liability to combat harassment bribes. Asymmetric liability is a mechanism where bribe-takers are culpable but bribe-givers have legal immunity. Results from our experiment indicate that while this policy has the potential to significantly reduce corrupt practices, weak economic incentives for the bribe-giver, or retaliation by bribetakers can mitigate the disciplining effect of such an implementation. Asymmetric liability on its own may hence face challenges in the field.

Condemning corruption while condoning inefficiency: an experimental investigation into voting behavior

“…Experiments that investigate corrupt decisions randomly allocate subjects to the role of the briber and of the public official, and allow subjects to decide whether to offer a bribe and to accept it, respectively (Abbink et al 2000(Abbink et al , 2002(Abbink et al , 2014Abbink 2004;Abbink and Hennig-Schmidt 2006;Abbink and Wu 2017). We do not allocate subjects randomly to the different roles for ethical and experimental reasons.…”

“…Existing experiments of corruption regularly involve two or more players in a game in which the first player takes the role of the briber and the second one of the public official (Abbink et al 2000(Abbink et al , 2002Abbink 2004). In this setting, variations in politicians' salaries did not affect observed levels of bribes (Abbink et al 2000), but staff rotation measures (Abbink 2004), liability for bribe-takers with no liability for bribe-givers (Abbink et al 2014), and monetary rewards for whistleblowers (Abbink and Wu 2017) reduced collusive bribery. The study of Abbink et al (2002) also introduced the negative externality into the bribe in the game, and found no evidence that individuals consider the harm they cause to other subjects when deciding whether to offer or accept a bribe.…”

Experimental Criminal Law. A Survey of Contributions from Law, Economics and Criminology

“…A characteristic example is the experiment by Abbink, Dasgupta et al (2014). Corruption is a vexing social evil.…”

“…It requires a change in the structure of the game. The official moves first, and "offers" to behave as required by law if the citizen gives her a sidepayment (Abbink, Dasgupta et al 2014). Such behavior becomes less frequent if the interaction is framed as bribery (Banerjee 2016).…”

“…It becomes more frequent if officials compete with each other (Ryvkin and Serra 2015). It is substantially reduced if the private person is not punished (Abbink, Dasgupta et al 2014). …”