Randomized response methods, which were designed to elicit candid answers to sensitive questions, have not succeeded in eliminating reticence in survey responses. We implement a methodology that effectively stands the randomized response technique on its head, using it to identify reticent respondents. In a sample of Romanian company officials, we identify a specific 10% of respondents as reticent with near certainty and estimate that roughly 40% of the whole sample were actually reticent. The identifiably reticent respondents admit to corruption interactions significantly less often than others do. They are also more likely to state that it is impermissible to break socially beneficial rules. We show that reticence is related to the respondent's age and the colonial heritage of the respondent's region. These results suggest some difficulties in making cross-country comparisons of corruption and of values using the types of survey data often employed in social science research and policy analysis.
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Paper provided by University of Maryland, Department of Economics in its series Electronic Working Papers with number
05-001.
Length: 38 pages Date of creation: Dec 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:umd:umdeco:05-001
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative P51 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems
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