Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-sk4tg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T16:16:01.482Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intermediaries in corruption: an experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Mikhail Drugov ,
John Hamman  and
Danila Serra
Mikhail Drugov*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Calle Madrid 126, 28903 Getafe, Spain
John Hamman*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Florida State University, 113 Collegiate Loop, Room 262 Tallahassee, FL, USA
Danila Serra*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, 3300 Dyer Street, Suite 301, Umphrey Lee Center Dallas, TX, USA
*
mdrugov@eco.uc3m.es
jhamman@fsu.edu
dserra@smu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence suggests that intermediaries are ubiquitous in corrupt activities; however, empirical evidence on their role as facilitators of corrupt transactions is scarce. This paper asks whether intermediaries facilitate corruption by reducing the moral or psychological costs of possible bribers and bribees. We designed bribery lab experiment that simulates petty corruption transactions between private citizens and public officials. The experimental data confirm that intermediaries lower the moral costs of citizens and officials and, thus, increase corruption. Our results have implications with respect to possible anti-corruption policies targeting the legitimacy of the use of intermediaries for the provision of government services.

Keywords

IntermediariesBriberyExperimentMoral cost

JEL classification

D73: Bureaucracy • Administrative Processes in Public Organizations • Corruption Z19: Other C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Manuscript
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 78 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-013-9358-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We thank Abigail Barr, David Cooper, Dann Millimet, Ernesto Reuben, Tim Salmon and two anonymous referees for valuable insights and suggestions. We also thank participants at the 2010 SEA Meeting, the FSU experimental reading group, the CESS (Oxford) workshop, the 4th NYU-CESS Experimental Political Science conference, the 7th IMEBE meeting and the 2011 Lisbon Meeting in Institutions and Political Economy for useful comments. Mikhail Drugov gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under grants ECO2008-03516 and ECO2011-30323-C03-03. Danila Serra acknowledges financial support from the program for the Study of Political Economy and Free Enterprise at Florida State University.

References

Abbink, K., & Hennig-Schmidt, H. (2006). Neutral versus loaded instructions in a bribery experiment. Experimental Economics, 9(2), 103–121. 10.1007/s10683-006-5385-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abbink, K., Serra, D. Serra, D., & Wantchekon, L. (2012). Anti-corruption policies: lessons from the lab. New advances in experimental research on corruption, Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing 10.1108/S0193-2306(2012)0000015006Google Scholar
Abbink, K., Irlenbusch, B., & Renner, E. (2002). An experimental bribery game. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 18(2), 428–454. 10.1093/jleo/18.2.428CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alatas, V., Cameron, L., Chaudhuri, A., Erkal, N., & Gangadharan, L. (2009). Gender, culture, and corruption: insights from an experimental analysis. Southern Economic Journal, 75(3), 663–680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alatas, V., Cameron, L., Chaudhuri, A., Erkal, N., & Gangadharan, L. (2009). Subject pool effects in a corruption experiment: a comparison of Indonesian public servants and Indonesian students. Experimental Economics, 12(1), 113–132. 10.1007/s10683-008-9207-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armantier, O., & Boly, A. (2012). Comparing corruption in the lab and in the field in Burkina Faso and in Canada. Mimeo, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.Google Scholar
Banerjee, A., Hanna, R., Mullainathan, S. Gibbons, R., & Roberts, J. (2012). Corruption. Handbook of organizational economics, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Banuri, S., & Eckel, C. (2011). The effects of short-term punishment institutions on bribery: US versus Pakistan. Mimeo, University of Texas, Dallas.Google Scholar
Barr, A., & Serra, D. (2009). The effects of externalities and framing on bribery in a petty corruption experiment. Experimental Economics, 12(4), 488–503. 10.1007/s10683-009-9225-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, A., & Serra, D. (2010). Corruption and culture: an experimental analysis. Journal of Public Economics, 94(11–12), 862–869. 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.07.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartling, B., & Fischbacher, U. (2012). Shifting the blame: on delegation and responsibility. Review of Economic Studies, 79(1), 67–87. 10.1093/restud/rdr023CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertrand, M., Djankov, S., Hanna, R., & Mullainathan, S. (2007). Obtaining a driver’s license in India: an experimental approach to studying corruption. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(4), 1639–1676. 10.1162/qjec.2007.122.4.1639CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bjorvatn, K., Torsvik, G., & Tungodden, B. (2005). How middle-men can undermine anti-corruption reforms. Working paper 2005:1, Chr. Michelsen Institute.Google Scholar
Bolton, G. E., & Ockenfels, A. (2000). ERC: a theory of equity, reciprocity, and competition. The American Economic Review, 90(1), 166–193. 10.1257/aer.90.1.166CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bose, G., & Gangopadhyay, S. (2009). Intermediation in corruption markets. Indian Growth and Development Review, 2(1), 39–55. 10.1108/17538250910953453CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandts, J., & Charness, G. (2000). Hot vs. cold: sequential responses and preference stability in experimental games. Experimental Economics, 2(3), 227–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandts, J., & Charness, G. (2011). The strategy versus the direct-response method: a first survey of experimental comparisons. Experimental Economics, 14(3), 375–398. 10.1007/s10683-011-9272-xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, J. Graf Lambsdor, J., Schramm, M., & Taube, M. (2004). The use of intermediaries and other alternatives to bribery. The new institutional economics of corruption: norms, trust, and reciprocity, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brosig, J., Weimann, J., & Yang, C.-L. (2003). The hot versus cold effect in a simple bargaining experiment. Experimental Economics, 6(1), 75–90. 10.1023/A:1024204826499CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, L., Chaudhuri, A., Erkal, N., & Gangadharan, L. (2009). Propensities to engage in and punish corrupt behavior: experimental evidence from Australia, India, Indonesia and Singapore. Journal of Public Economics, 93(7–8), 843–851. 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.03.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cason, T. N., & Mui, V.-L. (1998). Social influence in the sequential dictator game. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 42(2–3), 248–265. 10.1006/jmps.1998.1213CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coffman, L. C. (2011). Intermediation reduces punishment (and reward). American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 3(4), 77–106.Google Scholar
Ellingsen, T., Johannesson, M., Tjøtta, S., & Torsvik, G. (2010). Testing guilt aversion. Games and Economic Behavior, 68(1), 95–107. 10.1016/j.geb.2009.04.021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischbacher, U. (2007). z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 10(2), 171–178. 10.1007/s10683-006-9159-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fjeldstad, O.-H. (2003). Fighting fiscal corruption: lessons from the Tanzania revenue authority. Public Administration and Development, 23(2), 165–175. 10.1002/pad.278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fjeldstad, O.-H., & Rose-Ackerman, S. (2006). Laboratory experiments on corruption. International handbook on the economics of corruption, Cheltenham Glos: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Lambsdorff, J. G. (2002). Making corrupt deals: contracting in the shadow of the law. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 48(3), 221–241. 10.1016/S0167-2681(01)00217-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambsdorff, J. G. (2011). Corrupt intermediaries in international business transactions: between make, buy and reform. European Journal of Law and Economics.Google Scholar
Güth, W., Huck, S., & Müller, W. (2001). The relevance of equal splits in ultimatum games. Games and Economic Behavior, 37(1), 161–169. 10.1006/game.2000.0829CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamman, J. R., Loewenstein, G., & Weber, R. A. (2010). Self-interest through delegation: an additional rationale for the principal-agent relationship. American Economic Review, 100(4), 1826–1846. 10.1257/aer.100.4.1826CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamman, J. R., Weber, R. A., & Woon, J. (2011). An experimental investigation of electoral delegation and the provision of public goods. American Journal of Political Science, 55(4), 738–752. 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00531.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasker, K., & Okten, C. (2008). Intermediaries and corruption. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 67(1), 103–115. 10.1016/j.jebo.2006.06.015CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hey, J. D. (1998). Experimental economics and deception: a comment. Journal of Economic Psychology, 19(3), 397–401. 10.1016/S0167-4870(98)00013-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oldenburg, P. (1987). Middlemen in third-world corruption: implications of an Indian case. World Politics, 39(4), 508–535. 10.2307/2010290CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxoby, R. J., & McLeish, K. N. (2004). Sequential decision and strategy vector methods in ultimatum bargaining: evidence on the strength of other-regarding behavior. Economics Letters, 84(3), 399–405. 10.1016/j.econlet.2004.03.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paharia, N., Kassam, K. S., Greene, J. D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2009). Dirty work, clean hands: the moral psychology of indirect agency. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 134–141. 10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.03.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivas, M. F. (2008). An experiment on corruption and gender. Mimeo, University of Granada.Google Scholar
Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Corruption and government: causes, consequences and reform, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 10.1017/CBO9781139175098CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Royzman, E. B., & Baron, J. (2002). The preference for indirect harm. Social Justice Research, 15(2), 165–184. 10.1023/A:1019923923537CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schotter, A., Weigelt, K., & Wilson, C. (1994). A laboratory investigation of multiperson rationality and presentation effects. Games and Economic Behavior, 6(3), 445–468. 10.1006/game.1994.1026CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serra, D. (2012). Combining top-down and bottom-up accountability: evidence from a bribery experiment. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1993). Corruption. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(3), 599–617. 10.2307/2118402CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Søreide, T., & Rose-Ackerman, S. (2006). Laboratory experiments on corruption. International handbook on the economics of corruption, Cheltenham Glos: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Spulber, D. F. (1996). Market microstructure and intermediation. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10(3), 135–152. 10.1257/jep.10.3.135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Drugov et al. supplementary material

Drugov et. al. supplementary material
Download Drugov et al. supplementary material(File)
File 737.1 KB