Coethnicity and Corruption: Field Experimental Evidence from Public Officials in Malawi

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Brigitte Seim ◽  
Amanda Lea Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials

AbstractCorruption is widespread in many developing countries, though public officials’ discretion in the solicitation of bribes may expose some citizens to more corruption than others. We derive expectations about how shared ethnicity between government officials and citizens should influence the likelihood of bribe solicitation. We evaluate these expectations through a field experiment in which Malawian confederates seek electricity connections from real government offices – an interaction that is often accompanied by bribe solicitation. Our field experiment exogenously varied coethnicity between the official and the confederate. We find that coethnicity increases the likelihood of expediting an electricity connection, both with and without a bribe, which we interpret as evidence of parochial corruption.

scholarly journals Public Officials’ Knowledge of Advances and Gaps for Implementing the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries in Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2703
Author(s):  
Rodrigo A. Estévez ◽  
Stefan Gelcich
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Fisheries Management ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Mandatory Requirement ◽  
Support Decision Making

The United Nations calls on the international community to implement an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) that considers the complex interrelationships between fisheries and marine and coastal ecosystems, including social and economic dimensions. However, countries experience significant national challenges for the application of the EAF. In this article, we used public officials’ knowledge to understand advances, gaps, and priorities for the implementation of the EAF in Chile. For this, we relied on the valuable information held by fisheries managers and government officials to support decision-making. In Chile, the EAF was established as a mandatory requirement for fisheries management in 2013. Key positive aspects include the promotion of fishers’ participation in inter-sectorial Management Committees to administrate fisheries and the regulation of bycatch and trawling on seamounts. Likewise, Scientific Committees formal roles in management allow the participation of scientists by setting catch limits for each fishery. However, important gaps were also identified. Officials highlighted serious difficulties to integrate social dimensions in fisheries management, and low effective coordination among the institutions to implement the EAF. We concluded that establishing clear protocols to systematize and generate formal instances to build upon government officials’ knowledge seems a clear and cost effective way to advance in the effective implementation of the EAF.

scholarly journals Three doors anomaly, “should I stay, or should I go”: an artefactual field experiment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Morone ◽  
Rocco Caferra ◽  
Alessia Casamassima ◽  
Alessandro Cascavilla ◽  
Paola Tiranzoni
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Bayesian Updating ◽  
Anomalous Behavior ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Illusion Of Control ◽  
Optimal Decision ◽  
Status Quo Bias ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis work aims to identify and quantify the biases behind the anomalous behavior of people when they deal with the Three Doors dilemma, which is a really simple but counterintuitive game. Carrying out an artefactual field experiment and proposing eight different treatments to isolate the anomalies, we provide new interesting experimental evidence on the reasons why subjects fail to take the optimal decision. According to the experimental results, we are able to quantify the size and the impact of three main biases that explain the anomalous behavior of participants: Bayesian updating, illusion of control and status quo bias.

scholarly journals When Will People Pay to Pollute? Environmental Taxes, Political Trust and Experimental Evidence from Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 661-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Fairbrother
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Environmental Taxes ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Political Distrust ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
The Relationship

This article presents results from survey experiments investigating conditions under which Britons are willing to pay taxes on polluting activities. People are no more willing if revenues are hypothecated for spending on environmental protection, while making such taxes more relevant to people – by naming petrol and electricity as products to which they will apply – has a modestly negative effect. Public willingness increases sharply if people are told that new environmental taxes would be offset by cuts to other taxes, but political distrust appears to undermine much of this effect. Previous studies have argued that political trust shapes public opinion with respect to environmental and many other policies. But this article provides the first experimental evidence suggesting that the relationship is causal, at least for one specific facet: cynicism about public officials’ honesty and integrity. The results suggest a need to make confidence in the trustworthiness of public officials and their promises more central to conceptualizations of political trust.

scholarly journals Kwacha Gonna Do? Experimental Evidence about Labor Supply in Rural Malawi

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Labor Supply ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Wage Elasticity ◽  
Supply Elasticity ◽  
Labor Supply Elasticity ◽  
Job Offers ◽  
Daily Wage

I use a field experiment to estimate the wage elasticity of employment in the day labor market in rural Malawi. Once a week for 12 consecutive weeks, I make job offers for a workfare-type program to 529 adults. The daily wage varies from the tenth to the ninetieth percentile of the wage distribution, and individuals are entitled to work a maximum of one day per week. In this context (the low agricultural season), 74 percent of individuals worked at the lowest wage, and consequently the estimated labor supply elasticity is low (0.15), regardless of observable characteristics. (JEL C93, J22, J31, O15, O18, R23)

scholarly journals The Effect of Corruption and Governance on Tax Revenues

2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (4II) ◽  
pp. 405-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahseen Ajaz ◽  
Eatzaz Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
Tax Administration ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Revenue Generation ◽  
Quality Of Governance

Developing countries are typically unable to generate sufficient amount of revenue from taxation because these countries face a number of institutional problems in the process of revenue generation. One of the main problems is corruption in tax administration. The two important components of revenue generation are tax administration and tax system reforms [Brondolo, et al. (2008)]. The main objective of these is to increase the efficiency of tax administrations, specifically by reducing corruption and tax evasion. The second main problem of low revenue generation is political instabilities in developing countries. One of the important characteristics of political instability is unstable and governments and, hence, incoherent policy framework, which hinder in the process of long-term reforms in the system. The quality of governance as a whole is also relevant in this context. It is widely agreed that the presence of tax evasion and corruption of public officials is a social phenomenon that can significantly reduce tax revenue and seriously hurt economic growth and development.

THE IMPACT OF THE ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGN ON INCOME DISTRIBUTION: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
YING GE ◽  
JINJUN XUE
Keyword(s):  
Income Distribution ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Household Income ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Earnings Gap ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Impact

This paper provides the first systematic micro-level evidences on the effectiveness of anti-corruption campaign in disciplining public officials and its impact on income distribution. Based on China Household Income Project (CHIP) survey data 2007 and 2013, we found that party and government officials had significant hidden income and the public–private earnings gap was as high as 8% before the campaign. However, the hidden income become not significant and the earnings gap declined to −18% in this post-campaign period. The regions inspected by central anti-corruption inspection groups experience larger public earnings penalties compared to the other regions. Overall, our findings suggest that the privilege of public officials declined sharply during this anti-corruption campaign.

The Consumer Citizen, Politicians, and Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
Ethan Porter
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Political Candidate ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter studies the relationship between consumer fairness, political preferences, and policy uptake. Americans who support Donald Trump are especially likely to believe the government should be judged by the standards of private companies. New experimental evidence documents that, when politicians of both parties use consumer rhetoric, co-partisans of those leaders subsequently come to view politics in strikingly consumerist terms. In another experiment, results show that voters with low levels of political knowledge look most positively upon a hypothetical political candidate who promises cost-benefit alignability, compared to a candidate who promises more benefits than costs. The chapter then describes a field experiment administered in cooperation with a health insurance cooperative funded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A message that framed the cooperative as meeting the standards of cost-benefit alignability caused people to enroll in the cooperative.

Bribery and Corruption

2015 ◽  
pp. 196-210
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Oil Contracts ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level ◽  
Personal Welfare ◽  
Political Economic

Bribes are mainly directed at government officials, although they could be directed at the employees and managers of business firms. However, bribery appears to be a self-defined crime. Bribery of small public sector employees is a white-collar crime. However, bribery also exists in high-level decision-making processes, whether political, economic, or corporate situations. These are large-scale bribes, consisting of millions and/or billions of dollars, paid out to executives and public officials in return for construction contracts, oil contracts, telecommunication contracts, etc. Although punishments exist and are implemented, it is up to the individual alone to make the final decision and choose between personal moral value system and personal welfare in opposition to serving the public welfare. This chapter explores bribery.

Mexico

2019 ◽  
pp. 310-343
Author(s):  
Andrew Boutros
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Full Force ◽  
Mexican Congress ◽  
Legal Entities

There have been significant changes to Mexican law recently that have provided prosecutors updated and enhanced tools to combat corruption. In May 2015, the Mexican Congress and the states approved a constitutional amendment that created the National Anti-Corruption System, which was put into full force and effect in 2017. This supplemented and broadened the already existing anti-corruption laws in Mexico’s public procurement process. Now individuals and legal entities can be criminally liable for bribery of public officials in Mexico. In November 2014, Mexico City passed modifications to the criminal code making bribery an offense that can be committed by both individuals and legal entities and created an innovative approach to calculating penalties against companies. However, even though laws have changed, much remains to be done. The OECD noted that Mexico has fully implemented very few of the recommendations that it has made to eradicate corruption. Mexico still had no prosecutions or convictions for foreign bribery. Corruption is still common in Mexico, with the widespread use of “gestores” or intermediaries to navigate the bureaucracies responsible for issuing licenses and permits, shell companies owned by family members of government officials seeking a bribe, fictitious service providers, and improper gifting and excessive hospitality to employees of state-owned entities. With the new Lopez Obrador Administration’s anti-corruption plan, further changes are anticipated in public procurement by the creation of a central mechanism to manage and monitor public contracts to achieve greater transparency. The new administration has also committed to creating an autonomous Special Prosecutor’s Office to independently investigate and prosecute corruption cases and to implement additional restrictions on entertainment and gifts provided to public officials.

Mentoring the Next Generation of Women Candidates: A Field Experiment of State Legislators

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarina Rhinehart
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Women In Politics ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Women Legislators ◽  
Specific Advice ◽  
Gender Specific

This experiment sent state legislators an email from an individual seeking advice on running for office, varying the gender and party of the sender. This project explores two inquiries—who the legislators choose to respond to and how the legislators’ own gender and partisan identities shape that decision. I theorize that women in politics is a salient issue for legislators; therefore, they will be more willing to advise politically ambitious women. Overall, I find that legislators are more willing to offer help when the aspirant is a woman and of the same party. When primed to further consider women in politics, legislators are more likely to offer gender-specific advice. Democrats rather than women legislators drive this heightened responsiveness to the woman aspirant. These findings highlight what role public officials can play in closing the candidate gender gap, and how legislators’ multiple identities intersect and frame their decisions to aid political aspirants.

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