IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v19y2019i4p13n10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Do Intermediaries Affect the Effectiveness of the Four-Eyes-Principle? An Experimental Investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Fan Liangcong

    (Zhejiang University, Guanghua Law School, 51 Zhijiang Road, 310008Hangzhou, China)

  • Ying Zechun
  • Yuan Yuemei

    (College of Economics, Zhejiang University, 310027Hangzhou, China)

  • Zhang Xinchao

    (Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Jinan Branch, 250011Jinan, China)

  • Xu Bin

    (College of Economics, Zhejiang Gongshang University, 310018Hangzhou, China)

Abstract

Corrupt deals are commonly arranged by intermediaries. However, attempts to deter corruption pay little attention to the role of intermediaries in corrupt deals. This paper reports a laboratory bribery experiment on corruption designed to investigate how intermediaries with information about the lowest bribe that the official is willing to accept in a briber-initiated corrupt deal affect the effectiveness of the four-eyes-principle (FEP) on deterring corruption. We find that the introduction of the FEP significantly decreases the corruption level by increasing uncertainty. However, the presence of intermediaries with information completely offsets the positive effect of introducing the FEP on preventing corruption. Our findings suggest that further research on corruption should allow a more active role of intermediaries, and legislators should take the role of intermediaries into account when designing anti-corruption mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Fan Liangcong & Ying Zechun & Yuan Yuemei & Zhang Xinchao & Xu Bin, 2019. "How Do Intermediaries Affect the Effectiveness of the Four-Eyes-Principle? An Experimental Investigation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(4), pages 1-13, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:19:y:2019:i:4:p:13:n:10
    DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2019-0059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2019-0059
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/bejeap-2019-0059?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. Ariane Lambert-Mogiliansky & Mukul Majumdar & Roy Radner, 2009. "Strategic analysis of petty corruption with an intermediary," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 13(1), pages 45-57, April.
    2. Bjorvatn, Kjetil & Torsvik, Gaute & Tungodden, Bertil, 2004. "How middle-men can undermine anti-corruption reforms," Working Papers in Economics 12/04, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    3. Abigail Barr & Danila Serra, 2009. "The effects of externalities and framing on bribery in a petty corruption experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(4), pages 488-503, December.
    4. Schickora, Jan Theodor, 2011. "Bringing the Four-Eyes-Principle to the Lab," Discussion Papers in Economics 12160, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    5. Barr, Abigail & Serra, Danila, 2010. "Corruption and culture: An experimental analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 862-869, December.
    6. Frank Björn & Li Sha & Bühren Christoph & Qin Haiying, 2015. "Group Decision Making in a Corruption Experiment: China and Germany Compared," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(2), pages 207-227, April.
    7. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    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. Ning Wang & Can Wang & Limin Hou & Bing Fang, 2021. "Investigating Young Employee Stressors in Contemporary Society Based on User-Generated Contents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-19, December.

    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. Bühren Christoph, 2020. "Staff Rotation as an Anti-Corruption Policy in China and in Germany: An Experimental Comparison," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 240(1), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Mikhail Drugov & John Hamman & Danila Serra, 2014. "Intermediaries in corruption: an experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 78-99, March.
    3. Abbink, Klaus & Wu, Kevin, 2017. "Reward self-reporting to deter corruption: An experiment on mitigating collusive bribery," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 256-272.
    4. Maria Vittoria Levati & Chiara Nardi, 2019. "The power of words in a petty corruption experiment," Working Papers 18/2019, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    5. Dmitry Ryvkin & Danila Serra, 2016. "The Industrial Organization of Corruption: Monopoly, Competition and Collusion," Working Papers wp2016_10_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    6. Ryvkin, Dmitry & Serra, Danila, 2020. "Corruption and competition among bureaucrats: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 439-451.
    7. Paulo Arvate & Sergio Mittlaender, 2017. "Condemning corruption while condoning inefficiency: an experimental investigation into voting behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 399-419, September.
    8. Delaney, Jason & Jacobson, Sarah, 2015. "The good of the few: Reciprocal acts and the provision of a public bad," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 46-55.
    9. Frank Björn & Li Sha & Bühren Christoph & Qin Haiying, 2015. "Group Decision Making in a Corruption Experiment: China and Germany Compared," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(2), pages 207-227, April.
    10. Harri, Ardian & Zhllima, Edvin & Imami, Drini & Coatney, Kalyn T., 2020. "Effects of subject pool culture and institutional environment on corruption: Experimental evidence from Albania," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(2).
    11. Fahr, René & Djawadi, Behnud Mir, 2012. "The impact of risk perception and risk attitudes on corrupt behavior: Evidence from a petty corruption experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62022, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Andreas C. Drichoutis & Veronika Grimm & Alexandros Karakostas, 2020. "Bribing to Queue-Jump: An experiment on cultural differences in bribing attitudes among Greeks and Germans," Working Papers 2020-2, Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics.
    13. Sarah Jacobson & Jason Delaney, 2012. "The Good of the Few: Reciprocity in the Provision of a Public Bad," Department of Economics Working Papers 2012-02, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    14. Jiang, Shuguang & Wei, Qian, 2022. "Confucian culture, moral reminder, and soft corruption," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    15. Banuri, Sheheryar & Eckel, Catherine, 2012. "Experiments in culture and corruption : a review," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6064, The World Bank.
    16. Schram, Arthur & Zheng, Jin Di & Zhuravleva, Tatyana, 2022. "Corruption: A cross-country comparison of contagion and conformism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 497-518.
    17. Levati, M. Vittoria & Nardi, Chiara, 2023. "Letting third parties who suffer from petty corruption talk: Evidence from a collusive bribery experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Salmon, Timothy C. & Serra, Danila, 2017. "Corruption, social judgment and culture: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 64-78.
    20. Jiang, T., 2015. "Social preferences, culture and corruption," Other publications TiSEM 488aa1b0-f588-4c1b-8a85-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    intermediary; bribery experiment; the four-eyes-principle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    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:bpj:bejeap:v:19:y:2019:i:4:p:13:n:10. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.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.