I paid a bribe: Information Sharing and Extortionary Corruption

Dmitry Ryvkin, Danila Serra () and James Tremewan
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Danila Serra: Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University

No wp2015_07_01, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Florida State University

Abstract: Theoretical and empirical research on corruption has flourished in the last three decades; however, identifying successful anti-corruption policies remains a challenge. In this paper we ask whether bottom-up institutions that rely on voluntary and anonymous reports of bribe demands, such as the "I paid a bribe" website first launched in India in 2010, could act as effective anti-corruption tools, and, if this is the case, whether and how their effectiveness could be improved. We overcome measurement and identification problems by addressing our research questions in the laboratory. Our results suggest that the presence of a reporting platform significantly reduces bribe demands. The most effective platform is one where posting is restricted to service recipients and where posts disclose specific information about the size of the bribes and the location of their requestors, i.e., a platform that could serve as a search engine for the least corrupt officials.

Keywords: information sharing; extortionary corruption; experiment; crowdsourcing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D49 D73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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