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Let’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany

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Corruption and Norms

Part of the book series: Political Corruption and Governance ((PCG))

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on behavioral differences across cultures in an experimental bribery game that contributes to cross-country comparisons. To answer the question, what affects an individual’s propensity to engage in and punish corrupt actions?, bribery games have been run with over 700 students, comparing individual decision-making in the US and Germany. Contrary to the assumptions, almost 70% of the Californian participants offered and accepted a bribe. In Germany, almost 50% took the opportunity to offer a bribe and 40% accepted one. In the US, 52% of the participants punished corrupt acts, compared to 80% in Germany. The results can be explained by differences in the level of individualism and by “a cultural transmission of corruption”. This explanation should also imply a society’s ability to build anti-corruption norms.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This situation describes one form of corruption. There are also individual forms of corruption where a power holder individually abuses power (e.g. see Azfar and Nelson 2007; Abbink and Ellman 2005; Barr et al. 2009).

  2. 2.

    In this chapter, I consider punishment as an endogenous factor that takes place if the victim decides to incur the cost associated with punishment. Thus, I am able to examine both the incentives to engage in corruption and the incentives to punish corrupt behavior (Cameron et al. 2009).

  3. 3.

    Moreover, in contrast to our study, Banuri and Eckel’s experiment is more focused on the mechanisms of punishment and is designed as a repetition game.

  4. 4.

    Furthermore, there are subnational variations of corruption measures in both countries. For instance, in the US, New York is very infamous for its corrupt government culture as is the city of Chicago and many other states (see the Center for Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School).

  5. 5.

    Formal institutions are particularly considered by new institutional approaches that are often used by sociologists to analyze corruption by stressing the role of institutions actors operate in. Thus, it is assumed that the relationship between institutions and actors are reciprocal and cyclical (Groenendijk 1997).

  6. 6.

    The other dimensions include: (1) Power distance; (2) Uncertainty avoidance; (3) Masculinity vs. femininity; (4) Long-term vs. short-term orientation and (5) Indulgence vs. restraint.

  7. 7.

    For instance, the firms can select between the following answers if they have bribed: “payoff maximization”, “for the social/economic good of the country (e.g. reduce unemployment etc.)”, “to see the response of the official/citizen” or “other reasons”. If they have not bribed they can choose between “morality”, “to reduce corruption (social cost)”, “profit-maximization (in the long run it is bad for the firm)”, it is “not necessary for firms to bribe”, “equity” or “other reasons”.

    If the officials have accepted the bribe they can decide between the options “necessary for firms to bribe/will be able to help the firm”, “necessary because salaries are low”, “payoff maximization”, “equity”, “game will continue” or “other reasons”. If they have not accepted the bribe they can select between the reasons “morality”, “to reduce corruption (social cost)”, “scared of implications/risk”, “payoff maximization”, “fairness”, “bribe too small” or “other reasons”.

  8. 8.

    If the citizens punish the bribery, they have the opportunity to choose between the following response options: “morality”, “reduce corruption”, “fairness”, “negative reciprocity” or “other reasons”. If the citizen has not punished the other actors, he or she can select an answer between “payoff maximization”, “difficult to change the system”, “ineffective punishment system”, “bribe may be for a good purpose or may be necessary” or “other reasons”.

  9. 9.

    I have not included an individual’s age because of missing variance in the data.

  10. 10.

    Work experience includes any type of job and any period of time.

  11. 11.

    For this question, I have five dimensions (personally in your workplace, personally at university, via friends/family, via mass media, no contact). I also ask them to provide us relevant examples.

  12. 12.

    I define bribery as an activity that involves a payment in money, services or other valuables to make things pass smoothly, swiftly or more favorable through private, public or government bureaucracies. It describes a behavioral exchange that involves a person that seeks a public service and a person that delivers a public service.

  13. 13.

    Abbink (2002) makes a similar assumption in his study. As in his paper, this multiplier also has the additional advantage of helping us prevent negative total payoffs.

  14. 14.

    Cooper and Kagel (2003) consider the role of loaded language in signaling games and suggest that the use of a meaningful context might better capture behavior in field settings than the use of neutral language. However, Abbink and Hennig-Schmidt (2006) suggest that neutrally framed experiment s are not necessarily less interpretable in terms of a real-life situation than those presented in a context. They find that the use of words like “bribe” do not make a difference in corruption games they have conducted.

  15. 15.

    Comparing my results with the findings of Banuri and Eckel (2011), at the University of Texas, where bribes were sent in 60 percent of decisions in the no-punishment treatment and 42 percent of decisions with punishment, we can show that the propensity to engage in corrupt actions is even higher in California with the punishment treatment.

  16. 16.

    An alternative way of designing a more effective punishment system would be to increase the multiplier on the punishment level chosen by the citizen. However, I chose to increase the punishment options available to the citizens since I am also interested in examining “choice set” effects.

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Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges financial support from the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine and the DFG (German Research Foundation, grant agreement number KU 3235/1-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Ina Kubbe

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  1. Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Ina Kubbe

  2. Law Faculty, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Annika Engelbert

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Kubbe, I. (2018). Let’s Play: Bribery Games in the US and Germany. In: Kubbe, I., Engelbert, A. (eds) Corruption and Norms. Political Corruption and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66254-1_9

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