Understanding Corruption and Corruptibility Through Experiments

Abstract

Corruption and corruptibility – due to their illegal and therefore secretive nature – are diff- icult to be assessed either with traditional tools, such as hard data on criminal convictions or soft data elicited through opinion polls, questionnaires, or case studies. While there se- ems to be agreement nowadays that corruption does have a negative impact on (foreign) private investment and growth, government revenue and infrastructure, and social equali- ty, and while there seems to be evidence that low economic development, federal structu- re and short histories of experience with democracy and free trade all favour corruption on the macro-level, it is poorly understood what exactly, on the micro-level, the determinants of corruptibility are and what institutional arrangements could be used to fight (the causes of) corruption. In this article we review a third, complementary mode of investigation of co- rruption and corruptibility: experiments. We assess their strengths and weaknesses, and identify areas where they could be particularly useful in guiding policy choices – namely in designing incentive-compatible and effective anti-corruption measures in public procure- ment.