Dishonesty and Selection into Public Service in Denmark: Who Runs the World’s Least Corrupt Public Sector?

Sebastian Barfort, Nikolaj Harmon, Frederik Hjorth and Asmus Olsen ()
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Sebastian Barfort: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
Nikolaj Harmon: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
Frederik Hjorth: Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

No 15-12, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: Are country-level differences in corruption related to the dishonesty level of individuals entering public service? Recent studies have found that dishonest individuals self-select into public service in high-corruption settings. Little is known, however, about what is driving this pattern and whether a similar pattern exists in low-corruption settings. This paper examines selection into public service in the world’s least corrupt country, Denmark. We subject a relevant student population to a standard experimental dishonesty task and develop a novel method to estimate individual-level dishonesty from the experimental data. We then relate estimates of dishonesty to subjects’ job preferences and characteristics. In contrast to previous findings, dishonest individuals in low-corruption Denmark are less likely to want to enter public service. This self-selection is not related to risk-aversion or ability. Instead, we find that dishonest individuals who self-select into higher paid private sector careers such as finance are less altruistic and place a higher weight on their own earning opportunities. Accordingly, counterfactual wage questions suggest that higher public sector wages would attract more dishonest candidates to the public sector in Denmark.

Keywords: occupational choice; sector choice; coin tossing; dice under cup (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D73 H83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2015-09-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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