Four essays on corruption and cooperation [Elektronische Ressource] : theory and evidence / vorgelegt von Jan Theodor Schikora

Four Essays on Corruption and Cooperation
Theory and Evidence
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades
Doctor oeconomiae publicae (Dr. oec. publ.)
an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
2010
vorgelegt von
Jan Theodor Schikora
Referent: Prof. Dr. Martin G. Kocher
Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff
Promotionsabschlussberatung: 9. Februar 2011Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 27.01.2011
Namen der Berichterstatter: Martin Kocher, Johann Graf Lambsdorff, Joachim WinterAcknowledgements
First, I would like to thank my supervisor Martin G. Kocher. Throughout my
doctoral studies he supported all my projects and provided me with valuable comments.
I am also very thankful to Johann Graf Lambsdorff who gave me priceless insights into
the research area in which he truly is an expert. I also thank Joachim Winter who
agreed to serve as the third supervisor to my dissertation and supported me with helpful
comments.
I would also like to thank my co-author Johannes Maier with whom I learnt a lot
about cooperation and efficiency going far beyond the subject of our research project. I
have received support and valuable comments from many other friends, colleagues, and
participants at conferences and seminars, especially from Klaus M. Schmidt and at the
Brown Bag Seminar of MELESSA, for which I am very grateful.
In particular, I am grateful to the participants of the Workshop ‘The Economics of
Corruption - A University Training in Good Governance and Reform’ at the University
of Passau 2008, the ‘MERSS’ summer school at the University of Mannheim in 2007
and the ‘BLESS’ experimental summer school at the University Pompeo Fabra in 2008.
I would also like to thank Toke Aid for his support during my stay at the University
of Cambridge as a visiting PhD student. For financial support I would like to thank
the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Dekanat of the University of Munich.
As my direct superiors I thank Florian Englmaier and Joachim Winter for their trust
and confidence. I also thank the entire staff involved in conducting my experiments at
MELESSA.
Lastly I thank Stephanie Penzel and my family, especially my mother, for their support
and patience.
Jan Schikora.Contents
Preface 1
1 How do Groups stabilize Corruption? 9
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.1 Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.2 Stabilizing corruption through repeated interaction . . . . . . . . 14
1.2.3 Level of corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3.1 Heterogeneity of social structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3.2 Multilateral Punishment Strategies (MPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3.3 Corruption and group size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.3.4 Structure of society and level of corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.3.5 Stability and convergence of group size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.5 Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2 Bringing the Four-Eyes-Principle to the Lab 36
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2 Experimental set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Contents ii
2.2.1 Corruption and the NIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.2.2 The 4EP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2.3 Related literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3 Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.3.1 Bribe Splitting Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.3.2 Group Decision-making Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3.3 B’s behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.3.4 Gender effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.3.5 Total effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.4 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5 Results and Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.5.1 Descriptive results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.5.2 Conditional reciprocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.5.3 Switching behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.5.4 Content analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.7 Appendix 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3 Bringing Good and Bad Whistle-Blowers to the Lab 87
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.2 Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.2.1 Representation of the basic game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.2.2 Treatment specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.2.3 Related literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.4 Analysis and hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Contents iii
3.4.1 Number of legal transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.4.2 Stabilizing corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.4.3 Gender effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.4.4 Officials’ whistle-blowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.5 Results and Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
3.5.1 Descriptive statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
3.5.2 Conditional reciprocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.5.3 Whistle-blowing and gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.5.4 Path-dependent behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.7 Appendix 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
4 Cooperation with Uncertain Endowments 139
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.2 The Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.3.1 Treatment Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.3.2 Explaining Treatment Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
4.5 Appendix 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Bibliography 185List of Tables
2.1 Performance variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.2 Gini Coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.3 Output of (M3) and (M4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.4 R-value and adjusted R-value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.5 Success and Initial Consent, TDT1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.6 Success and Initial Consent, TDT2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.7 Success and Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.8 Model M1, Random effects estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.9 Model M2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.10 Model M4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.1 Main Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.2 Transfer levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.3 Gender and punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
3.4 Output for random effects estimation (M1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
3.5 All relevant Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.1 Strategy Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
4.2 Absolute and Relative Conditional Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.3 Type-Specific Relative Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . 159List of Figures
1.1 Extensive Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2 Examples of group structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3 Exemplary form of E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1 Extensive form representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2 Monetary Costs and Benefits of corruption in TDT1 and TDT2 . . . . . 47
2.3 Success-probabilities over Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.4 Payoff levels and levels of externalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.5 Relative distribution of transfer levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.6 Success rates condi