Bribing Behaviour and Sample Selection: Evidence from Post-Socialist countries and Western Europe

We study the individual-level determinants of bribing public officials. Particular attention is paid to the issue of respondents’ non-random selection into contact with public officials, which may result in biased estimates. Data come from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey, covering 30 post-socialist and five Western European countries. The Heckman probit model results suggest that the elderly are less likely to bribe public officials, while linguistic minorities, people with higher perceived relative income and those with lower trust in public institutions are more likely to bribe. The results also show that not accounting for sample selection effects produces an upward bias in estimated coefficients.