IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ejlwec/v47y2019i2d10.1007_s10657-019-09611-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gift policy, bribes and corruption

Author

Listed:
  • Mehmet Bac

    (Sabanci University)

Abstract

A ban on gifts in public offices partially deters bribery but may induce undeterred bribers to switch from gifts to money. The rise in the use of a more liquid instrument (money) increases the bribe acceptance rate and, possibly, the measure of unqualified applications approved by the office. A gift ban may thus amplify the social costs of corruption by allocating public resources to the wrong people. It is shown that the optimal limited gift ban with a value cap binding on “expensive” gifts dominates the free gifts policy. The limited ban has weaker deterrence than the complete ban but it may reduce the social costs of corruption by minimizing the switch from gifts to money.

Suggested Citation

  • Mehmet Bac, 2019. "Gift policy, bribes and corruption," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 255-275, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:47:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s10657-019-09611-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-019-09611-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10657-019-09611-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10657-019-09611-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1995. "Corruptible Law Enforcers: How Should They Be Compensated?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 145-159, January.
    2. Sherry, John F, Jr, 1983. "Gift Giving in Anthropological Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(2), pages 157-168, September.
    3. Lambsdorff, Johann Graf & Frank, Björn, 2010. "Bribing versus gift-giving - An experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 347-357, June.
    4. Prendergast, Canice & Stole, Lars, 2001. "The non-monetary nature of gifts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1793-1810, December.
    5. Hongbin Cai & Hanming Fang & Lixin Colin Xu, 2011. "Eat, Drink, Firms, Government: An Investigation of Corruption from the Entertainment and Travel Costs of Chinese Firms," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 55-78.
    6. Richard Zeckhauser (ed.), 1991. "Strategy and Choice," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262240335, December.
    7. Ong, David, 2008. "Fishy Gifts: Bribing with Shame and Guilt," MPRA Paper 17019, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 Aug 2009.
    8. Lambsdorff,Johann Graf, 2007. "The Institutional Economics of Corruption and Reform," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521872751.
    9. Louis Kaplow, 2011. "On the Optimal Burden of Proof," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1104-1140.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nina Bobkova & Henrik Egbert, 2012. "Corruption Investigated in the Lab: A Survey of the Experimental Literature," International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, vol. 2(4), pages 337-337.
    2. John Bone & Dominic Spengler, 2014. "Does Reporting Decrease Corruption?," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 26(1-2), pages 161-186, January.
    3. Rai Dipankar & Kulick George & Lin Chien-Wei & Hong JungHwa, 2017. "The influence of relationship beliefs on gift giving," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 12(4), pages 697-709, December.
    4. Sun, Francis, 2016. "How to manage client entertainment in China," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 401-410.
    5. Balafoutas, Loukas, 2011. "Public beliefs and corruption in a repeated psychological game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 51-59, April.
    6. Dominic Spengler, 2012. "Endogenising Detection in an Asymmetric Penalties Corruption Game," Discussion Papers 12/20, Department of Economics, University of York.
    7. Burlando, Alfredo & Motta, Alberto, 2016. "Legalize, tax, and deter: Optimal enforcement policies for corruptible officials," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 207-215.
    8. Lambsdorff, Johann Graf & Frank, Björn, 2011. "Corrupt reciprocity - Experimental evidence on a men's game," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 116-125, June.
    9. Cooter Robert D. & Garoupa Nuno, 2014. "A Disruption Mechanism for Bribes," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-23, November.
    10. Hans J. Czap & Natalia V. Czap, 2019. "‘I Gave You More’: Discretionary Power in a Corruption Experiment," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 32(2), pages 200-217, July.
    11. Lambert-Mogiliansky, Ariane & Majumdar, Mukul & Radner, Roy, 2007. "Strategic analysis of petty corruption: Entrepreneurs and bureaucrats," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 351-367, July.
    12. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & N'Guessan, Tchetche, 1999. "Competition and corruption in an agency relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 271-295, December.
    13. Graf Lambsdorff, Johann, 2010. "Deterrence and constrained enforcement: Alternative regimes to deal with bribery," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-60-10, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    14. Spengler Dominic, 2014. "Endogenous Detection of Collaborative Crime: The Case of Corruption," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-17, July.
    15. Lambsdorff Johann Graf & Schulze Günther G., 2015. "Guest Editorial: Special Issue on Corruption at the Grassroots-level: What Can We Know About Corruption?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(2), pages 100-114, April.
    16. Cavanaugh, Lisa A. & Gino, Francesca & Fitzsimons, Gavan J., 2015. "When doing good is bad in gift giving: Mis-predicting appreciation of socially responsible gifts," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 178-189.
    17. Maurizio Caserta & Livio Ferrante & Francesco Reito, 2022. "Bribes and Bureaucracy Size: The Strategy of Watering Down Corruption," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 191-213, January.
    18. Kannan Perumal, 2021. "Rent seeking, supervisor approvals and conventional corruption control approach—an Indian experience," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 23(2), pages 357-376, December.
    19. Lily Fang & Josh Lerner & Chaopeng Wu & Qi Zhang, 2023. "Anticorruption, Government Subsidies, and Innovation: Evidence from China," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(8), pages 4363-4388, August.
    20. Antonio Acconcia & Marcello D'Amato & Riccardo Martina, 2003. "Corruption and Tax Evasion with Competitive Bribes," CSEF Working Papers 112, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gifts; Liquidity; Bribery; Public policy; Social costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:47:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s10657-019-09611-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.