Social Status and Corruption

We study the interaction between social and economic incentives in determining the level of corruption. Using social rewards as incentives for civil servants may help to reduce corruption. In our model, a decrease in corruption produces an externality that reduces the cost of hiring civil servants....

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Galiani, Sebastian, Weinschelbaum, Federico
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2013
Country:Argentina
Institution:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repository:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/28317
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/28317
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Social Status
Corruption
Wage Incentives
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.2
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5
Description
Summary:We study the interaction between social and economic incentives in determining the level of corruption. Using social rewards as incentives for civil servants may help to reduce corruption. In our model, a decrease in corruption produces an externality that reduces the cost of hiring civil servants. In particular, it makes wage schemes which avert corruption (efficiency wages) cheaper. We show that the existence of this externality reduces the ?optimal? level of corruption in a society, the greater the power of social status, the lower the level of corruption.