IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sad/wpaper/24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corruption with Competition Among Hidden Principals

Author

Listed:
  • Federico Weinschelbaum

    (Department of Economics, Universidad de San Andres)

Abstract

Generally when there is increased competition on one side of the market, the other side is better off. We study the effects of increased competition among sellers when there is a potentially corrupt agent who procures the good on behalf of a buyer. The model consists of a principal (the owner of a ¯rm), an agent (the manager), and many \hidden principals" (suppliers of an input). Corruption occurs when an agent conspires with one of these hidden principals to appropriate gains at the principal's expense. Suppliers have two key attributes: production cost and \dishonesty" cost (a utility penalty incurred from being corrupt). The effects of increased competition among suppliers depend crucially on whether new suppliers are heterogeneous across these characteristics. When the new suppliers vary according to their productivity levels and/or their honesty levels, there are three possible sources of ine±ciency. First, no transaction may occur, although it is socially e±cient to transact. Second, the most productive supplier may not be used because he is too honest. Third, the most productive supplier may not be used because the principal has (optimally) restricted the pool of potential suppliers. Importantly, we ¯nd that increased competition among sellers may in fact harm the buyer.

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Weinschelbaum, 2000. "Corruption with Competition Among Hidden Principals," Working Papers 24, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Jan 2000.
    • Handle: RePEc:sad:wpaper:24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc24.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2000
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jay Pil Choi & Marcel Thum, 2004. "The Economics of Repeated Extortion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(2), pages 203-223, Summer.
    2. Acemoglu, Daron & Verdier, Thierry, 1998. "Property Rights, Corruption and the Allocation of Talent: A General Equilibrium Approach," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1381-1403, September.
    3. Jean Tirole, 1996. "A Theory of Collective Reputations (with applications to the persistence of corruption and to firm quality)," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 1-22.
    4. Bliss, Christopher & Di Tella, Rafael, 1997. "Does Competition Kill Corruption?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1001-1023, October.
    5. Rose-Ackerman, Susan, 1975. "The economics of corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 187-203, February.
    6. Rafael Di Tella & Alberto Ades, 1999. "Rents, Competition, and Corruption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 982-993, September.
    7. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    8. Lui, Francis T., 1986. "A dynamic model of corruption deterrence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 215-236, November.
    9. Alberto Ades & Rafael Di Tella, 1997. "The New Economics of Corruption: a Survey and Some New Results," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 45(3), pages 496-515, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miguel Braun & Rafael Di tella, 2004. "Inflation, Inflation Variability, and Corruption," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 77-100, March.
    2. Alfredo Canavese, 2004. "Commons, anti-commons, corruption and 'maffia' behavior," Law and Economics 0411002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Roberto Cortes Conde, 2008. "Spanish America Colonial Patterns: The Rio de La Plata," Working Papers 96, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Mar 2008.

    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. Keith Blackburn & Niloy Bose & M. Emranul Haque, 2011. "Public Expenditures, Bureaucratic Corruption And Economic Development," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(3), pages 405-428, June.
    2. Blackburn, Keith & Bose, Niloy & Emranul Haque, M., 2006. "The incidence and persistence of corruption in economic development," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 2447-2467, December.
    3. Cooter, Robert & Garoupa, Nuno, 2000. "The Virtuous Circle of Distrust: A Mechanism to Deter Bribes and Other Cooperative Crimes," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt83c0k3wc, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    4. Blackburn, Keith & Forgues-Puccio, Gonzalo F., 2009. "Why is corruption less harmful in some countries than in others?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 797-810, December.
    5. Keith Blackburn & Rashmi Sarmah, 2006. "Red Tape, Corruption and Finance," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0639, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    6. Blackburn, Keith & Forgues-Puccio, Gonzalo F., 2007. "Distribution and development in a model of misgovernance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1534-1563, August.
    7. Keith Blackburn & Niloy Bosey & Salvatore Capasso, 2008. "Living With Corruption: Threshold Effects in Red Tape and Rent Seeking," Working Papers 4_2008, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    8. Keith Blackburn & Niloy Bose & M. Emranul Haque, 2010. "Endogenous corruption in economic development," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 37(1), pages 4-25, January.
    9. M. Haque & Richard Kneller, 2009. "Corruption clubs: endogenous thresholds in corruption and development," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 345-373, November.
    10. Pieroni, L. & d'Agostino, G., 2013. "Corruption and the effects of economic freedom," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 54-72.
    11. Olivier Armantier & Amadou Boly, 2008. "Can Corruption Be Studied in the Lab? Comparing a Field and a Lab Experiment," CIRANO Working Papers 2008s-26, CIRANO.
    12. Nicolas Jacquemet, 2005. "La corruption comme une imbrication de contrats : Une revue de la littérature microéconomique," Working Papers 2005-29, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    13. Zeeshan Noor Siddiqui, 2017. "Understanding the Linkage among Public Procurement (PP), Corruption, and Tax Morale (TM) Through Agency Theory (AT): A Review," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 9(3), pages 258-288, September.
    14. Dong, Bin & Dulleck, Uwe & Torgler, Benno, 2012. "Conditional corruption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 609-627.
    15. Foellmi, Reto & Oechslin, Manuel, 2007. "Who gains from non-collusive corruption?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 95-119, January.
    16. Wolfgang Maennig, 2002. "On the Economics of Doping and Corruption in International Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(1), pages 61-89, February.
    17. M. Emranul Haque & Richard Kneller, 2007. "Business Cycle Synchronization of the Euro Area with the New and Negotiating Member Countries," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 92, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    18. Indranil Dutta & Ajit Mishra, 2003. "Corruption and Competition in the Presence of Inequality and Market Imperfections," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 152, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    19. Estrin, Saul & Campos, Nauro & Proto, Eugenio, 2010. "Corruption as a Barrier to Entry: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 8061, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corruption; principal-agent; hidden principal; competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:sad:wpaper:24. 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: Maria Amelia Gibbons (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desanar.html .

    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.