Corruption: A cross-country comparison of contagion and conformism

Arthur Schram, Jin Di Zheng and Tatyana Zhuravleva

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 193, issue C, 497-518

Abstract: For successful anti-corruption policies, it is crucial to understand the basic social contract governing the interaction between people. Social norms are a key element of the social contract, but may vary across cultures. We investigate how descriptive social norms affect the development of corruption over time. In a laboratory experiment implemented in the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, and China we study a corruption game that is based on a real-effort task. To induce natural variation in descriptive norms, we vary the type of information about others’ choices. Such information may lead to ‘contagion’ -where corruption increases in response to observing high corruption by others- or ‘conformism’ -where it decreases when low corruption by others is observed. Our results show evidence of contagion.

Keywords: Corruption; Bribery; Laboratory experiments; Contagion effect; Conformism effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:193:y:2022:i:c:p:497-518

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.11.017

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