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Cultures of Corruption: Evidence From Diplomatic Parking Tickets

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Author Info
Raymond Fisman
Edward Miguel
Abstract

Corruption is believed to be a major factor impeding economic development, but the importance of legal enforcement versus cultural norms in controlling corruption is poorly understood. To disentangle these two factors, we exploit a natural experiment, the stationing of thousands of diplomats from around the world in New York City. Diplomatic immunity means there was essentially zero legal enforcement of diplomatic parking violations, allowing us to examine the role of cultural norms alone. This generates a revealed preference measure of government officials' corruption based on real-world behavior taking place in the same setting. We find strong persistence in corruption norms: diplomats from high corruption countries (based on existing survey-based indices) have significantly more parking violations, and these differences persist over time. In a second main result, officials from countries that survey evidence indicates have less favorable popular views of the United States commit significantly more parking violations, providing non-laboratory evidence on sentiment in economic decision-making. Taken together, factors other than legal enforcement appear to be important determinants of corruption.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12312.

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Date of creation: Jun 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12312

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
P48 - Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Other Economic Systems: Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights

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  1. Thierry Mayer & Soledad Zignago, 2005. "Market Access in Global and Regional Trade," Working Papers 2005-02, CEPII research center. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Di Tella, Rafael & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2003. "The Role of Wages and Auditing during a Crackdown on Corruption in the City of Buenos Aires," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 269-92, April.
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  7. Tirole, Jean, 1996. "A Theory of Collective Reputations (with Applications to the Persistence of Corruption and to Firm Quality)," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 63(1), pages 1-22, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Guido Tabellini, 2007. "The Scope of Cooperation: Norms and Incentives," Levine's Working Paper Archive 321307000000000866, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Rahman, Aminur & Li, Quan & Jensen, Nathan M., 2007. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter : understanding corruption using cross-national firm-level surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4413, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  3. Levy, Daniel, 2007. "Price adjustment under the table: Evidence on efficiency-enhancing corruption," MPRA Paper 1648, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Pande, Rohini, 2007. "Understanding Political Corruption in Low Income Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 6273, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Andrea Prat & Oriana Bandiera & Tommaso Valletti, 2007. "Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000100, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Dhammika Dharmapala & James R. Hines Jr., 2006. "Which Countries Become Tax Havens?," NBER Working Papers 12802, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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