Sustaining Honesty in Public Service: The Role of Selection

Sebastian Barfort, Nikolaj A. Harmon, Frederik Hjorth and Asmus Leth Olsen

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 96-123

Abstract: We study the role of self-selection into public service in sustaining honesty in the public sector. Focusing on the world's least corrupt country, Denmark, we use a survey experiment to document strong self-selection of more honest individuals into public service. This result differs sharply from existing findings from more corrupt settings. Differences in pro-social versus pecuniary motivation appear central to the observed selection pattern. Dishonest individuals are more pecuniarily motivated and self-select out of public service into higher-paying private sector jobs. Accordingly, we find that increasing public sector wages would attract more dishonest candidates to public service in Denmark.

JEL-codes: D73 H83 J31 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170688
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20170688 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20170688.data (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20170688.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20170688.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:96-123

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().