Ex ante transparency and corruption by networks

This paper explains the structure of corruption networks as response to ex ante transparency, defined as visibility of authorities whose cooperation clients may need, in due course, to execute corrupt transactions. It also characterizes the optimal transparency policy given the network response, as a function of connection costs, sanctions, the corruption surplus and the detection probability (hence the anti‐corruption budget and ex post transparency). Corruption chains may emerge in equilibrium if authority is expected to be shared by multiple offices, where the office with higher solo assignment probability becomes the intermediary. Otherwise, clients penetrate the bureaucracy by inducing the star network, or contend with single connection. I show that the optimal policy always assigns one office, sometimes alone, sometimes jointly with others. It is often possible to deter corruption networks through an ex ante transparent policy that parcels out authority to multiple offices with probability 1—a common feature of many US bureaucracies. Decomposing transparency into its components reveals nuances in the transparency–corruption relationship, suggesting that ex ante transparency is instrumental except in environments in which anti‐corruption enforcement is extremely effective or extremely ineffective.