IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/mzhkq_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Predictors of Bribe-Taking: The Role of Bribe Size and Personality

Author

Listed:
  • Vranka, Marek Albert

    (University of Economics)

  • Bahník, Štěpán

    (University of Economics, Prague)

Abstract

Experimental studies of corruption often employ variants of a simple one-shot paradigm based on the so-called “Trust game”. We present a new paradigm in which the opportunity to act corruptly is embedded in a meaningful task that participants perform. We discuss advantages of this new approach in comparison to the traditionally used paradigms and present results from its first implementation in a laboratory study of corruption. Refraining from corrupt behavior was perceived as moral and it was associated with higher scores on the honesty-humility scale from the HEXACO personality inventory. Trial-level analysis showed that response times were longer for trials with bribes and even longer for trials in which bribes were accepted, suggesting that acting corruptly may require overcoming an automatic honest response.

Suggested Citation

  • Vranka, Marek Albert & Bahník, Štěpán, 2017. "Predictors of Bribe-Taking: The Role of Bribe Size and Personality," OSF Preprints mzhkq_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:mzhkq_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/mzhkq_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/58e8f2296c613b024e7950d8/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/mzhkq_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Urs Fischbacher & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi, 2013. "Lies In Disguise—An Experimental Study On Cheating," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 525-547, June.
    2. Vivi Alatas & Lisa Cameron & Ananish Chaudhuri & Nisvan Erkal & Lata Gangadharan, 2009. "Gender, Culture, and Corruption: Insights from an Experimental Analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 663-680, January.
    3. Potters, Jan & Stoop, Jan, 2016. "Do cheaters in the lab also cheat in the field?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 26-33.
    4. van Veldhuizen, R., 2013. "The influence of wages on public officials’ corruptibility: A laboratory investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 341-356.
    5. D'Adda, Giovanna & Drouvelis, Michalis & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2016. "Norm elicitation in within-subject designs: Testing for order effects," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-7.
    6. Klaus Abbink & Bernd Irlenbusch & Elke Renner, 2002. "An Experimental Bribery Game," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 428-454, October.
    7. Anke Becker & Thomas Deckers & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2012. "The Relationship Between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 453-478, July.
    8. Barr, Abigail & Serra, Danila, 2010. "Corruption and culture: An experimental analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 862-869, December.
    9. David G. Rand & Joshua D. Greene & Martin A. Nowak, 2012. "Spontaneous giving and calculated greed," Nature, Nature, vol. 489(7416), pages 427-430, September.
    10. Abigail Barr & Danila Serra, 2009. "The effects of externalities and framing on bribery in a petty corruption experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(4), pages 488-503, December.
    11. Cameron, Lisa & Chaudhuri, Ananish & Erkal, Nisvan & Gangadharan, Lata, 2009. "Propensities to engage in and punish corrupt behavior: Experimental evidence from Australia, India, Indonesia and Singapore," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 843-851, August.
    12. Vivi Alatas & Lisa Cameron & Ananish Chaudhuri & Nisvan Erkal & Lata Gangadharan, 2009. "Gender, Culture, and Corruption: Insights from an Experimental Analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 663-680, January.
    13. Vivi Alatas & Lisa Cameron & Ananish Chaudhuri & Nisvan Erkal & Lata Gangadharan, 2009. "Subject pool effects in a corruption experiment: A comparison of Indonesian public servants and Indonesian students," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(1), pages 113-132, March.
    14. Shaw, Philip & Vásquez, William F. & LeClair, Mark, 2013. "Intelligence and bribing behavior in a one-shot game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 91-96.
    15. Abbink, Klaus, 2004. "Staff rotation as an anti-corruption policy: an experimental study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 887-906, November.
    16. Mikhail Drugov & John Hamman & Danila Serra, 2014. "Intermediaries in corruption: an experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 78-99, March.
    17. Dan Ariely & Nina Mazar, 2006. "Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications," Working Papers 06-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    18. Fišar, Miloš & Kubák, Matúš & Špalek, Jiři & Tremewan, James, 2016. "Gender differences in beliefs and actions in a framed corruption experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 69-82.
    19. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    20. Colin F. Camerer & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Anomalies: Ultimatums, Dictators and Manners," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 209-219, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vranka, Marek Albert & Bahník, Štěpán, 2017. "Predictors of Bribe-Taking: The Role of Bribe Size and Personality," OSF Preprints mzhkq, Center for Open Science.
    2. Armand, Alex & Coutts, Alexander & Vicente, Pedro C. & Vilela, Inês, 2023. "Measuring corruption in the field using behavioral games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    3. Nina Bobkova & Henrik Egbert, 2012. "Corruption Investigated in the Lab: A Survey of the Experimental Literature," International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, vol. 2(4), pages 337-337.
    4. Ahloy, James & Gilland, Rebecca & Hamman, John R., 2024. "A corruption dilemma," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    5. Abbink, Klaus & Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Gangadharan, Lata & Jain, Tarun, 2014. "Letting the briber go free: An experiment on mitigating harassment bribes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 17-28.
    6. Alice Guerra & Tatyana Zhuravleva, 2022. "Do women always behave as corruption cleaners?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 173-192, April.
    7. Ritwik Banerjee, 2016. "On the interpretation of bribery in a laboratory corruption game: moral frames and social norms," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 240-267, March.
    8. van Veldhuizen, R., 2013. "The influence of wages on public officials’ corruptibility: A laboratory investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 341-356.
    9. Gans-Morse, Jordan & Borges, Mariana & Makarin, Alexey & Mannah-Blankson, Theresa & Nickow, Andre & Zhang, Dong, 2018. "Reducing bureaucratic corruption: Interdisciplinary perspectives on what works," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 171-188.
    10. Hans J. Czap & Natalia V. Czap, 2019. "‘I Gave You More’: Discretionary Power in a Corruption Experiment," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 32(2), pages 200-217, July.
    11. García-Gallego, Aurora & Georgantzis, Nikos & Jaber-López, Tarek & Michailidou, Georgia, 2020. "Audience effects and other-regarding preferences against corruption: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 159-173.
    12. Christoph Engel, 2016. "Experimental Criminal Law. A Survey of Contributions from Law, Economics and Criminology," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_07, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    13. Maria Vittoria Levati & Chiara Nardi, 2019. "The power of words in a petty corruption experiment," Working Papers 18/2019, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    14. Guerra, Alice & Zhuravleva, Tatyana, 2021. "Do bystanders react to bribery?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 442-462.
    15. Engel, Christoph & Zamir, Eyal, 2024. "Is transparency a blessing or a curse? An experimental horse race between accountability and extortionary corruption," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Mahsa Akbari & Duman Bahrami‐Rad & Erik O. Kimbrough & Pedro P. Romero & Sadegh Alhosseini, 2020. "An Experimental Study Of Kin And Ethnic Favoritism," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1795-1812, October.
    17. Mikhail Drugov & John Hamman & Danila Serra, 2014. "Intermediaries in corruption: an experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 78-99, March.
    18. Olivier Armantier & Amadou Boly, 2008. "Can Corruption Be Studied in the Lab? Comparing a Field and a Lab Experiment," CIRANO Working Papers 2008s-26, CIRANO.
    19. Ananish Chaudhuri & Tirnud Paichayontvijit & Erwann Sbai, 2016. "The Role of Framing, Inequity and History in a Corruption Game: Some Experimental Evidence," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, June.
    20. Jordan Gans-Morse & Alexander S. Kalgin & Andrei V. Klimenko & Andrei A. Yakovlev, 2017. "Motivations for Public Service in Corrupt States: Evidence from Post-Soviet Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 13/PSP/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:mzhkq_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.