Who controls the controller? A dynamical model of corruption

Abstract

The aim of this article is to give at least a partial answer to the question made in the title. Several works analyze the evolution of the corruption in different societies. Most of such papers show the necessity of several controls displayed by a central authority to deter the expansion of the corruption. However there is not much literature that addresses the issue of who controls the controller. This article aims to approach an answer to this question. Indeed, as it is well known, in democratic societies an important role should be played by citizens. We show that politically active citizens can prevent the spread of corruption. More precisely, we introduce a game between government and officials where both can choose between a corrupt or honest behavior. Citizens have a political influence that results in the prospects of a corrupt and a non-corrupt government be re-elected or not. This results in an index of intolerance to corruption. We build an evolutionary version of the game by means of the replicator dynamics and we analyze and fully characterize the possible trajectories of the system according to the index of intolerance to corruption and other relevant quantities of the model.

How do governments determine policy priorities? Studying development strategies through spillover networks

“…We assume that corruption and budgetary decisions are outcomes of a political economy game where public officials have incentives to divert allocated funds. This is consistent with the idea that decentralized forms of corruption are more damaging to the economy [Bardhan, 1997], and with theoretical studies of corruption as a game between non-elected officials and a central government that is accountable to the electorate [Accinelli et al, 2016]. vide a more structured description of the agents' timing.…”

A Step Forward in the Minimization of Political Corruption in Financial Support of Political Parties: The Experience of Ukraine and Lithuania

“…Therefore, the aspects in which political corruption was presented as incorrect depended on the normative theory of social order that was dominant at one time or another. 1 Today this approach is supported by Ousanee Sawagvudcharee and Maurice Youlles, who are convinced that the existence of corruption, including political, is largely due to the existing link between ideology and ethics that are commonplace in the state. 2 Similarly, Alberto Vanucci distinguishes the cultural paradigm between the three paradigms of corruption analysis, in which the existence of corruption is due to existing cultural traditions, social norms and the intrinsically accepted values of each society, which ultimately forms the preference of individuals for encouraging corruption or struggle with corrupt manifestations.…”

The power of voting and corruption cycles

“…Evolutionary game theory is a powerful tool to predict the time dynamics of the agents' strategic decisions involved in social conflicts, like corruption phenomena (see Accinelli and Carrera (2012); Accinelli et al (2017); Bicchieri and Duffy (1997)). Here, comparing with Accinelli et al (2017), we include the citizens as agents of the model.…”

“…Evolutionary game theory is a powerful tool to predict the time dynamics of the agents' strategic decisions involved in social conflicts, like corruption phenomena (see Accinelli and Carrera (2012); Accinelli et al (2017); Bicchieri and Duffy (1997)). Here, comparing with Accinelli et al (2017), we include the citizens as agents of the model. This allows us to study: (i) the time evolution of the citizens' strategies; (ii) their (time) dependence/influence on the evolution of the strategies of the government and officials; and (iii) the time dependence of the influence and strength of citizens' voting power in deterring corruption.…”