IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v61y1989i3p269-275.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the economic incentives for taking bribes

Author

Listed:
  • Rajeev Goel
  • Daniel Rich

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors affecting bribe taking by public officials. Factors influencing the acceptance of bribes include: the probability of being convicted, severity of punishment, government salary relative to private sector income, the demonstration effect, and the unemployment rate. Our results indicate that higher probability of being convicted discourages the acceptance of bribes as does more severe punishment. Low relative earnings, high unemployment, and the demonstration effect of aggregate advertising all lead to increased bribe taking. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1989

Suggested Citation

  • Rajeev Goel & Daniel Rich, 1989. "On the economic incentives for taking bribes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 269-275, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:61:y:1989:i:3:p:269-275
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00123889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00123889
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00123889?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. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Elie Appelbaum & Eliakim Katz, 2008. "Seeking Rents by Setting Rents: The Political Economy of Rent Seeking," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 555-569, Springer.
    3. Leamer, Edward E, 1983. "Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 31-43, March.
    4. Robert D. Tollison, 1982. "Rent Seeking: A Survey," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 575-602, November.
    5. Rose-Ackerman, Susan, 1975. "The economics of corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 187-203, February.
    6. Ann Dryden Witte, 1980. "Estimating the Economic Model of Crime With Individual Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(1), pages 57-84.
    7. George J. Stigler, 1974. "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 55-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Richard Allard, 1988. "Rent-seeking with non-identical players," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 3-14, April.
    9. Hillman, Arye L. & Katz, Eliakim, 1987. "Hierarchical structure and the social costs of bribes and transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 129-142, November.
    10. Davis, Michael L, 1988. "Time and Punishment: An Intertemporal Model of Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 383-390, April.
    11. Gordon Tullock, 1988. "The costs of rent seeking: A metaphysical problem," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 15-24, April.
    12. Elie Appelbaum & Eliakim Katz, 1986. "Transfer seeking and avoidance: On the full social costs of rent seeking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 175-181, January.
    13. Cadot, Olivier, 1987. "Corruption as a gamble," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 223-244, July.
    14. Lui, Francis T., 1986. "A dynamic model of corruption deterrence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 215-236, November.
    15. Goldberg, Itzhak & Nold, Frederick C, 1980. "Does Reporting Deter Burglars?-An Empirical Analysis of Risk and Return in Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 424-431, August.
    16. Lui, Francis T, 1985. "An Equilibrium Queuing Model of Bribery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 760-781, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jean Cartier-Bresson, 1992. "Éléments d'analyse pour une économie de la corruption," Revue Tiers Monde, Programme National Persée, vol. 33(131), pages 581-609.
    2. 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.
    3. Marjit, Sugata & Mukherjee, Vivekananda & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2000. "Harassment, corruption and tax policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 75-94, March.
    4. Marjit, Sugata & Shi, Heling, 1998. "On controlling crime with corrupt officials," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 163-172, January.
    5. Arjona Trujillo, Ana María, 2002. "La corrupción política: una revisión de la literatura," DE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía. DE de021404, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    6. Isaac Ehrlich, 1996. "Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 43-67, Winter.
    7. Arye L. Hillman & John G. Riley, 1989. "Politically Contestable Rents And Transfers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 17-39, March.
    8. Elie Appelbaum & Eliakim Katz, 1986. "Transfer seeking and avoidance: On the full social costs of rent seeking," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 391-397, Springer.
    9. Quinteros, María José & Villena, Marcelo J. & Villena, Mauricio G., 2019. "Whistleblowing Behavior in Organizations," MPRA Paper 99215, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Nov 2019.
    10. 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.
    11. Susan-Rose Ackerman, 1997. "Corruption, Infefficiency and Economic Growth," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 24, pages 3-20.
    12. Shouyong Shi & Ted Temzelides, 2003. "A Search-Theoretic Model of Bureaucracy and Corruption," Working Papers shouyong-03-02, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    13. Eide, Erling & Rubin, Paul H. & Shepherd, Joanna M., 2006. "Economics of Crime," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 2(3), pages 205-279, December.
    14. Kenneth Avio, 1998. "The Economics of Prisons," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 143-175, September.
    15. Rodrigues-Neto, José A., 2014. "On corruption, bribes and the exchange of favors," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 152-162.
    16. Hunt, Jennifer & Laszlo, Sonia, 2005. "Bribery: Who Pays, Who Refuses, What are the Payoffs?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5251, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Imrohoroglu, Ayse & Merlo, Antonio & Rupert, Peter, 2000. "On the Political Economy of Income Redistribution and Crime," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(1), pages 1-25, February.
    18. Edward M. Shepard & Paul R. Blackely, 2010. "Economics of Crime and Drugs: Prohibition and Public Policies for Illicit Drug Control," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Ishita Chatterjee & Ranjan Ray, 2009. "Crime, Corruption and Institutions," Monash Economics Working Papers 20-09, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    20. Hunt, Jennifer & Laszlo, Sonia, 2012. "Is Bribery Really Regressive? Bribery’s Costs, Benefits, and Mechanisms," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 355-372.

    More about this item

    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:kap:pubcho:v:61:y:1989:i:3:p:269-275. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.