Gender and Corruption: Insights from an Experimental Analysis

Vivi Alatas, Lisa Ann Cameron (), Ananish Chaudhuri (), Nisvan Erkal () and Lata Gangadharan

No 974, Department of Economics - Working Papers Series from The University of Melbourne

Abstract: In recent years, a substantial body of work has emerged in the social sciences exploring differences in the behavior of men and women in various contexts. This paper contributes to this literature by investigating gender differences in attitudes towards corruption. It departs from the previous literature on gender and corruption by using experimental methodology. Attitudes towards corruption play a critical role in the persistence of corruption. Based on experimental data collected in Australia (Melbourne), India (Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Singapore, we show that while women in Australia are less tolerant of corruption than men in Australia, there are no significant gender differences in attitudes towards corruption in India, Indonesia and Singapore. Hence, our findings suggest that the gender differences found in the previous studies may not be nearly as universal as stated and may be more culture-specific. We also explore behavioral differences by gender across countries and find that there are larger variations in women’s attitudes towards corruption than in men’s across the countries in our sample.

Keywords: Gender; Corruption; Experiments; Punishment; Multicultural Analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 J16 K42 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cwa, nep-dev, nep-exp, nep-lab, nep-law, nep-pol, nep-reg, nep-sea and nep-soc
Date: 2006
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