On the economic incentives for taking bribes

Goel, Rajeev K.; Rich, Daniel P.

doi:10.1007/bf00123889

Cited by 125 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The positive correlation between salary and the quantity of legislation passed suggests that, indeed, a higher salary provides more incentives for the politician to act in the interests of his voters. [12] and Goel and Rich [34] show that a politician's pay and his performance are positively correlated.…”

Section: Proofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political stability, corruption and trust in politicians

Schumacher

2013

Economic Modelling

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In this article we develop a dynamic model where an endogenous evolution of trust impacts a politician's choice for bribe-taking and tax re-distribution. The politician obtains utility from net income that comes from his wage income, tax embezzlements and bribe-taking, and he also has incentives for tax re-distribution. The higher the tax embezzlements and the more bribes the politician takes the lower his citizens' trust and the less likely will he be re-elected. We support the evolution of trust with an econometric investigation.We analyze the necessary and sufficient conditions, and find that withholding taxes and taking bribes may be complements or substitutes for a politician, depending on the politician's incentives for tax re-distribution. Without these incentives, tax embezzlement and bribe taking are necessarily substitutes. With sufficiently strong incentives, we find re-distribution and bribe-taking may become complements. Complements implies that the politician, at least partly, increases bribe-taking because this allows him to increase re-distribution, which aids his additional motives for tax re-distribution.Based on comparative statics at steady state we also find that the higher the politician's wage the lower the bribe-taking and the higher the trust; stronger social capital leads to less bribe-taking and higher levels of trust; improvements in electoral accountability induce a decrease in bribing while trust increases.

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Section: Proofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political stability, corruption and trust in politicians

Schumacher

2013

Economic Modelling

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“…Goel and Rich 1989;Glaeser and Saks 2006). This approach has the advantage of providing hard data about proven instances of corruption and related crimes, but still suffers from a number of serious limitations that render it of more marginal utility from a comparative perspective.…”

Section: Non-perceptual Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Close but no Cigar”: the measurement of corruption

Heywood¹,

Rose²

2014

J. Pub. Pol.

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:The financial cost of corruption has recently been estimated at more than 5 per cent of global GDP. Yet, despite the widespread agreement that corruption is one of the most pressing policy challenges facing world leaders, it remains as widespread today, possibly even more so, as it was when concerted international attention began being devoted to the issue following the end of the Cold War. In reality, we still have a relatively weak understanding of how best to measure corruption and how to develop effective guides to action from such measurement. This paper provides a detailed review of existing approaches to measuring corruption, focusing in particular on perception-based and nonperceptual approaches. We highlight a gap between the conceptualisation of corruption and its measurement, and argue that there is a tension between the demands of policy-makers and anti-corruption activists on the one hand, and the motivations of academic researchers on the other. The search for actionable answers on the part of the former sits uncomfortably with the latter's focus on the inherent complexity of corruption.

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“…Low government wages are likely to provide an incentive for government o¢ cials to engage in corruption. Goel and Rich (1989) and van Rijckeghem and Weder (2001) …nd a negative relationship between the level of government wages and the level of corruption. We use data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the years 1991, 1996, and 2001.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 98%