Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-f9bf7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T22:04:37.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the interpretation of bribery in a laboratory corruption game: moral frames and social norms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Ritwik Banerjee*
Affiliation:
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Abstract

Past studies on laboratory corruption games have not been able to find consistent evidence that subjects make “immoral” decisions. A possible reason, and also a critique of laboratory corruption games, is that the experiment may fail to trigger the intended immorality frame in the minds of the participants, leading many to question the very raison d’être of laboratory corruption games. To test this idea, we compare behavior in a harassment bribery game with a strategically identical but neutrally framed ultimatum game. The results show that fewer people, both as briber and bribee, engage in corruption in the bribery frame than in the alternative and the average bribe amount is lesser in the former than in the latter. These suggest that moral costs are indeed at work. A third treatment, which relabels the bribery game in neutral language, indicates that the observed treatment effect arises not from the neutral language of the ultimatum game but from a change in the sense of entitlement between the bribery and ultimatum game frames. To provide further support that the bribery game does measure moral costs, we elicit the shared perceptions of appropriateness of the actions or social norm, under the two frames. We show that the social norm governing the bribery game frame and ultimatum game frame are indeed different and that the perceived sense of social appropriateness plays a crucial role in determining the actual behavior in the two frames. Furthermore, merely relabelling the bribery game in neutral language makes no difference to the social appropriateness norm governing it. This indicates that, just as in the case of actual behavior, the observed difference in social appropriateness norm between bribery game and ultimatum game comes from the difference in entitlement too. Finally, we comment on the external validity of behavior in lab corruption games.

Type
Original Paper
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 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/s10683-015-9436-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

Abbink, K, & Hennig-Schmidt, H (2006). Neutral versus loaded instructions in a bribery experiment. Experimental Economics, 9(2), 103121. 10.1007/s10683-006-5385-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abbink, K, Irlenbusch, B, & Renner, E (2002). An experimental bribery game. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 18(2), 428454. 10.1093/jleo/18.2.428CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abbink, K, Dasgupta, U, Gangadharan, L, & Jain, T (2014). Letting the briber go free: An experiment on mitigating harassment bribes. Journal of Public Economics, 111(C), 1728. 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2013.12.012CrossRefGoogle 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), 113132. 10.1007/s10683-008-9207-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armantier, O, & Boly, A (2013). Comparing corruption in the laboratory and in the field in Burkina Faso and in Canada. The Economic Journal, 123, 11681187. 10.1111/ecoj.12019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banerjee, AV (1992). A simple model of herd behavior. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(3), 797817. 10.2307/2118364CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banerjee, R, Baul, T, & Rosenblat, T (2015). On self selection of the corrupt into the public sector. Economics Letters, 127, 4346. 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.12.020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banuri, S, Eckel, C, & Leonard, WDS (2012). Experiments in culture and corruption: A review. New advances in experimental research on corruption, research in experimental economics, chapter 3, Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited 5176. 10.1108/S0193-2306(2012)0000015005Google Scholar
Banuri, S., & Eckel, C. (2012). On the effects of culture on punishment of bribery: US versus Pakistan, CBEES Working Paper Series 11–05.Google Scholar
Baran, N. M., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2010). Can we infer social preferences from the lab? Evidence from the trust game. NBER Working Papers 15654, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc January 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, A, & Serra, D (2009). The effects of externalities and framing on bribery in a petty corruption experiment. Experimental Economics, 12(4), 488503. 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), 862869. 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.07.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernheim, BD (1994). A theory of conformity. Journal of Political Economy, 102(5), 841877. 10.1086/261957CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bicchieri, C, & Xiao, E (2009). Do the right thing—but only if others do so. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 22, 191208. 10.1002/bdm.621CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucciol, A, Landini, F, & Piovesan, M (2013). Unethical behavior in the field: Demographic characteristics and beliefs of the cheater. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 93(C), 248257. 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.03.018CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C Guillaume, F, & Schotter, A (2007). The promise of lab-field generalizability in experimental economics: A reply to levitt and list. Methods of modern experimental economics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google 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), 843851. 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.03.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cason, TN, & Mui, V-L (1998). Social influence in the sequential dictator game. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 42, 248265. 10.1006/jmps.1998.1213CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, DJ, Kagel, JH, Lo, W, & Gu, QL (1999). Gaming against managers in incentive systems: Experimental results with Chinese students and Chinese managers. The American Economic Review, 89(4), 781804. 10.1257/aer.89.4.781CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreber, A, Ellingsen, T, Johannesson, M, & Rand, D (2013). Do people care about social context? Framing effects in dictator games. Experimental Economics, 16(3), 349371. 10.1007/s10683-012-9341-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Englmaier, F., & Gebhardt, G. (2011) Free-riding in the lab and in the field. Technical report 2011.Google Scholar
Falk, A, & Heckman, JJ (2009). Lab experiments are a major source of knowledge in the social sciences. Science, 326(5952), 535538. 10.1126/science.1168244CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E, & Fischbacher, U (2004). Social norms and human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 185190. 10.1016/j.tics.2004.02.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fisman, R, & Miguel, E (2007). Corruption, norms, and legal enforcement: Evidence from diplomatic parking tickets. Journal of Political Economy, 115(6), 10201048. 10.1086/527495CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzen, A, & Pointner, S (2013). The external validity of giving in the dictator game. Experimental Economics, 16(2), 155169. 10.1007/s10683-012-9337-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gächter, S, Nosenzo, D, & Sefton, M (2013). Peer effects in pro-social behavior: Social norms or social preferences?. Journal of the European Economic Association, 11(3), 548573. 10.1111/jeea.12015CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gneezy, U., Saccardo, S., & van Veldhuizen, R. (2013). Bribery: Greed versus reciprocity. UC San Diego Working Papers, UC San Diego June 2013.Google Scholar
Hoffman, E, McCabe, KA, & Smith, VL (1996). On expectations and the monetary stakes in ultimatum games. International Journal of Game Theory, 25(3), 289301. 10.1007/BF02425259CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, E, McCabe, K, Shachat, K, & Smith, V (1994). Preferences, property rights, and anonymity in bargaining games. Games and Economic Behavior, 7(3), 346380. 10.1006/game.1994.1056CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robert, I, & Arnab, M (2013). Is dishonesty contagious?. Economic Inquiry, 51(1), 722734. 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2012.00470.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, J. & Vesterlund, L. (2014). The external validity of laboratory experiments: Qualitative rather than quantitative effects. In: Guillaume, F. & Schotter, A. (Eds.), Methods of Modern Experimental Economics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Krupka, E, & Weber, RA (2009). The focusing and informational effects of norms on pro-social behavior. Journal of Economic Psychology, 30(3), 307320. 10.1016/j.joep.2008.11.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krupka, EL, & Weber, RA (2012). Identifying social norms using coordination games: Why does dictator game sharing vary?. Journal of European Economic Association, 11, 495524. 10.1111/jeea.12006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, SD, & List, JA (2007). What do laboratory experiments measuring social preferences reveal about the real world?. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(2), 153174. 10.1257/jep.21.2.153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, J. (2012). Using field experiments to understand the economics of crime, Working Paper 2012.Google Scholar
Mazar, N., & Ariely, D. (2006). Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications, Technical Report 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. (2000). Collective action and the evolution of social norms. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 137158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxoby, RJ, & Spraggon, John (2008). Mine and yours: Property rights in dictator games. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(3–4), 703713. 10.1016/j.jebo.2005.12.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reuben, E, & Riedl, A (2013). Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations. Games and Economic Behavior, 77(1), 122137. 10.1016/j.geb.2012.10.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruffle, BJ (1998). More is better, but fair is fair: Tipping in dictator and ultimatum games. Games and Economic Behavior, 23(2), 247265. 10.1006/game.1997.0630CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serra, D (2006). Empirical determinants of corruption: A sensitivity analysis. Public Choice, 126(1), 225256. 10.1007/s11127-006-0286-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serra, D, Wantchekon, L, & Leonard, WDS (2012). Experimental research on corruption: Introduction and overview. New advances in experimental research on corruption, research in experimental economics, chapter 1, Bingly: Emerald Group Publishing Limited 5176.Google Scholar
Treisman, D (2000). The causes of corruption: A cross-national study. Journal of Public Economics, 76(3), 399457. 10.1016/S0047-2727(99)00092-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Banerjee supplementary material

Banerjee supplementary material
Download Banerjee supplementary material(File)
File 76.1 KB