Reward self-reporting to deter corruption: An experiment on mitigating collusive bribery

Klaus Abbink and Kevin Wu

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2017, vol. 133, issue C, 256-272

Abstract: This paper investigates the effectiveness of offering rewards for self reports as a means of combating collusive bribery. Rewarding self reporting theoretically sows distrust between parties tempted to exchange bribes and may reduce bribery even where authorities are otherwise ineffective in uncovering corruption. We test regimes where both the client and official may self-report and regimes where only one party may self report. We find that enabling both parties to self report is highly effective in deterring bribes being exchanged and corrupt favours being granted. Permitting only one party to self-report does not significantly deter corruption. The effect is most pronounced when agents are uncertain of whether they will interact with one another in future.

Keywords: Collusive bribery; Experiment; Asymmetric reporting; Reward; Bonus Leniency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Reward Self-Reporting to Deter Corruption: An Experiment on Mitigating Collusive Bribery (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:133:y:2017:i:c:p:256-272

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.09.013

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