Between responsibility and reciprocity - contributions of experimental corruption research

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff
• Subject Area: Economic Theory
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448261984

Corruption in the private and public sector has been systematically investigated, particularly in the last two decades, from the perspective of many disciplines and with great socio-political interest. In spite of this intensive research, the results are rather limited (Persson et al. 2012). In development aid or public procurement, for example, control systems tend to remain ineffective and increasingly impair a sense of responsibility and intrinsic motivation. Insights on how to avoid this remain unsystematic. One plausible reason for this problem is that the many and varied measures to prevent corruption are mostly aimed only at a general preventive effect. As a result, one central characteristic of corruption is lost sight of: public officials and business people build reciprocal relationships with which they secure their mutual claims. Economic research in recent years has shown that general preventive measures can be counterproductive, since they can strengthen a cartel of silence and the reciprocal relationships of corrupt actors (Buccirossi and Spagnolo 2006; Lambsdorff 2007; 2012). At the same time, research has demonstrated the importance of intrinsic motivation and its vulnerability to control measures (Falk and Kosfeld 2006; Gächter and Schulz 2016). A comprehensive, behaviour-oriented approach must identify measures that simultaneously have a general preventive effect, strengthen responsibility and contain reciprocity. To this end, the project uses a novel experimental design. This allows a systematic investigation of different anti-corruption measures in the laboratory. The added value of the project relative to existing research is that 1) the corrupt relationship is realistically modelled as a grey area between extortion, bribery and abuse of office, 2) four prominent anti-corruption methods are tested for their impact, in particular the punishment for granting benefits, acceptance of benefits, abuse of office and the nullity of the basic contract, 3) the intrinsic motivation of a public official plays a prominent role in the design, 4) naive assumptions regarding error-free law enforcement are avoided, 5) the welfare economic consequences of corruption are systematically recorded and integrated into the analysis, and 6) the external validity is supported by an implementation in 6 countries abroad. Thus, the project goes far beyond the current state of research and enables the identification of effective measures to combat corruption.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Dr. Susanna Grundmann; Dr. Katharina Werner