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The Role of Framing, Inequity and History in a Corruption Game: Some Experimental Evidence

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  • Ananish Chaudhuri

    (Department of Economics, University of Auckland, 660 Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland 1142, New Zealand)

  • Tirnud Paichayontvijit

    (Department of Economics, University of Auckland, 660 Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland 1142, New Zealand)

  • Erwann Sbai

    (Department of Economics, University of Auckland, 660 Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland 1142, New Zealand)

Abstract

We investigate the role of framing, inequity in initial endowments and history in shaping behavior in a corrupt transaction by extending the one-shot bribery game introduced by Cameron et al. (2009) to a repeated game setting. We find that the use of loaded language significantly reduces the incidence of bribery and increases the level of punishment. Punishment of bribery leads to reduced bribery in future. The evidence suggests that this game captures essential features of a corrupt transaction, over and above any sentiments of inequity aversion or negative reciprocity However, showing subjects the history of past play has little effect on the level of corruption.

Suggested Citation

  • Ananish Chaudhuri & Tirnud Paichayontvijit & Erwann Sbai, 2016. "The Role of Framing, Inequity and History in a Corruption Game: Some Experimental Evidence," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:7:y:2016:i:2:p:13-:d:72522
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    Cited by:

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    2. Garret Ridinger, 2018. "Cultural Transmission and Extortion," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-10, July.
    3. Bahník, Štěpán & Vranka, Marek Albert, 2022. "Reward perception, but not reward inequality is associated with increased bribe-taking in a laboratory task," OSF Preprints n7atx, Center for Open Science.
    4. Carlos Maximiliano Senci & Hipólito Hasrun & Rodrigo Moro & Esteban Freidin, 2019. "The influence of prescriptive norms and negative externalities on bribery decisions in the lab," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(3), pages 287-312, August.
    5. Bahník, Štěpán & Vranka, Marek A., 2022. "Experimental test of the effects of punishment probability and size on the decision to take a bribe," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    6. Guerra, Alice & Zhuravleva, Tatyana, 2021. "Do bystanders react to bribery?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 442-462.

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