Economics - Research Publications

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    Gender and corruption: insights from an experimental analysis
    Alatas, Vivi ; CAMERON, LISA ; Chaudhuri, Ananish ; ERKAL, NISVAN ; GANGADHARAN, LATA ( 2006-10)
    In recent years, a substantial body of work has emerged in the social sciences exploringdifferences in the behavior of men and women in various contexts. This paper contributes tothis literature by investigating gender differences in attitudes towards corruption. It departsfrom the previous literature on gender and corruption by using experimental methodology.Attitudes towards corruption play a critical role in the persistence of corruption. Based onexperimental data collected in Australia (Melbourne), India (Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta) andSingapore, we show that while women in Australia are less tolerant of corruption than men inAustralia, there are no significant gender differences in attitudes towards corruption in India,Indonesia and Singapore. Hence, our findings suggest that the gender differences found in theprevious studies may not be nearly as universal as stated and may be more culture-specific.We also explore behavioral differences by gender across countries and find that there arelarger variations in women’s attitudes towards corruption than in men’s across the countriesin our sample.
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    Do Attitudes Towards Corruption Differ Across Cultures?Experimental Evidence from Australia, India, Indonesia andSingapore
    CAMERON, LISA ; Chaudhuri, Ananish ; ERKAL, NISVAN ; GANGADHARAN, LATA ( 2005-07)
    This paper examines cultural differences in attitudes towards corruption by analysingindividual-decision making in a corrupt experimental environment. Attitudes towards corruptionplay a critical role in the persistence of corruption. Our experiments differentiate between theincentives to engage in corrupt behaviour and the incentives to punish corrupt behaviour andallow us to explore whether, in environments characterized by lower levels of corruption, there isboth a lower propensity to engage in corrupt behaviour and a higher propensity to punish corruptbehaviour. Based on experiments run in Australia (Melbourne), India (Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta)and Singapore, we find that there is more variation in the propensities to punish corruptbehaviour than in the propensities to engage in corrupt behaviour across cultures. The resultsreveal that the subjects in India exhibit a higher tolerance towards corruption than the subjects inAustralia while the subjects in Indonesia behave similarly to those in Australia. The subjects inSingapore have a higher propensity to engage in corruption than the subjects in Australia. Wealso vary our experimental design to examine the impact of a more effective punishment systemand the effect of the perceived cost of bribery.