In many developing countries, the struggle for economic growth is set back by rampant corruption. According to figures in a new study of the issue, people in urban areas of Kenya typically pay bribes 16 times a month. That's a drain on the economy, and it adds a layer of complexity between citizens and essential government services.
While a variety of policy approaches have attempted to limit corruption, it's difficult to track their effectiveness. Now, an international team of researchers has developed a game-theory approach to teasing out the factors that contribute to corruption. Their results show that under the wrong circumstances, a common method of limiting corruption—government transparency—can actually make matters worse.
The foundation of this work is what's called a "public goods game," which measures people's willingness to cooperate. In this game, everyone starts with a pool of cash and is given the opportunity to contribute to a common, public pool. The resulting pool is then multiplied, and its contents are distributed evenly among the players. The group as a whole works out best if everyone cooperates, contributing the maximum amount to the pool. But individuals do best if they freeload: contribute nothing, then take their share of the public pool.
Institutional punishment—essentially a government—can be added to the public goods game. In each round, a "leader" gets to see everyone's contributions and can levy fines against freeloaders. This tends to increase cooperation, but it can also degenerate into rounds of retribution if people take turns as the leader. (Some societies also apparently have issues with random punishment of people who are cooperating.) Past studies have shown that people are often willing to pay a personal cost in order to punish freeloaders.
Source: Ars Technica
Journal Reference: Nature Human Behaviour, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0138
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 19 2017, @09:35AM (7 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @11:04AM (1 child)
> make giving bribes legal,
Could go one step further -- make bribes a tax deduction, part of the cost of getting new business, just like business lunches, etc. Of course there needs to be suitable documentation to claim any business expense...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @11:36AM
Looks like that was done already https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery#Tax_treatment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Wednesday July 19 2017, @11:26AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday July 20 2017, @02:16AM
Wouldn't that just be further incentive to refuse to take any bribes at all?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @12:24PM
You are forgetting that it just means that prosecutors of bribe receivers will be bribed too. Effectively, the bribe is still being extracted, at an even steeper rate, but it is more distributed, flowing up and concentrating in the bureaucracy food chain. The only winning move for the commoners is to massively boycott the bribecracy, organize parallel and alternative ways to handle their affairs, and form a support network for those who take a hit for their disobedience to the corrupt system. It is not easy to accomplish though. The same personality traits and economic realities which produce corruption in governments may corrupt even the informal cooperative systems.
Bribery exists because organizational choke points exist. Once you can circumvent gate holders in sufficiently large number of ways, it withers away. That is a take away point for any would-be architect of government systems.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @03:16PM
Easier than that, just rename bribes to lobbying and don't worry about it anymore. Far easier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @06:58PM
That solution works for fighting the drug trade, as well. Don't have a penalty for selling drugs, only for taking them. That would depress the profits for dealers, and attack the actual problem: people using drugs. What we currently do is offer users some degree of immunity in exchange for testifying against dealers, and have much lower penalties for using as opposed to dealing. This makes dealing much more profitable, and using much less risky. This is why the war on drugs has increased drug use instead of decreasing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @10:58AM
Anecdote -- I knew a guy who moved from Spain to Venezuela c.1960. Later he moved to the USA and told me this story in the mid-1970s.
He went to the Venezuelan equivalent of the DMV to register a car and get plates for it. The large fancy office was nearly empty, just one clerk at the counter who refused to talk with him, tried a few times at different times of day (thinking people were out on lunch break or something). Then he asked some co-workers what was going on. One of them said, "I know someone that can help. Give me your paperwork and money [don't remember amount but it included a bribe]". Within a day he had his license plates.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday July 19 2017, @12:36PM (1 child)
IRL there is no such thing as leaders rotation. Politics mock rotation at most. So increasing transparency is increasing spotlights on the ruling class, maybe not effective but not harmful either.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 19 2017, @01:33PM
Bingo. This whole thing is indeed just a game. Here, in the more civilized world, no one offers me a rotation in an office, where I can check up on current or past politicians, affiliates, or even my neighbors. In the less civilized world, don't even dream of it. No dictator, despot, or master is going to give up his treasured spot, to share power with anyone.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @01:46PM (9 children)
I do not think of my government this way, in fact after working at one for ~5 years I got turned libertarian due to the simply insane waste and inefficiency I saw. I'd say a better simulation would be if you got back ~ 5% of what was put in.
But if others do think this way, it may succinctly explain why I hear about people cheering when taxes go up 30% in a day, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @04:31PM (7 children)
???? When have you ever heard about people cheering "when taxes go up 30% in a day"? Can you give examples, along with relevant citations? Are you sure you are not hearing things in the same way that Trump was "hearing things" while on the campaign trail? Don't misunderstand me. I pay my taxes just like everyone else; with it I (hopefully) buy civilization. But I don't find taxes to be something to cheer about; more like a necessary evil, to be honest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @04:43PM (6 children)
"I'm cheering because government raised my taxes."
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/governor-bruce-rauner-illinois-tax-hike-budget-crisis/Content?oid=27736480 [chicagoreader.com]
"Once the cheering and self-congratulations subside, Illinois Democrats must get to work on fixing the state’s broken financing system. "
http://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-illinois-budget-stalemate-is-over-but-broken-finances-will/article_6a0573f2-d0a6-5925-a469-2dc047181411.html [stltoday.com]
Also I was told second hand that people were cheering at work when it passed.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 19 2017, @05:46PM (5 children)
Way to cherry-pick the quote.
Someone's preferring losing a leg to dying. That doesn't mean they like losing the leg. While Illinois does need to get rid of a lot of gangrene, I do need to point out that "under 5%" (plus federal) is a ridiculously low tax level by civilized standards.
You can't think yourself as the most modern place, waste billions on military overspending, and take care of your population well, while thinking your taxes shouldn't exceed XIXth century levels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @06:38PM (4 children)
Illinois doesn't have a military.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 19 2017, @06:46PM (3 children)
You're not only taxed by the state. If your total tax burden was the under-5% Illinois demands, few would dare bitch about their taxes.
A significant amount of your total (sate+federal) taxes goes to supporting military overspending.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @07:02PM (2 children)
I'm not sure why you are bringing federal taxes into it. Total taxes didn't go up 30%, state taxes did.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 19 2017, @10:52PM (1 child)
And if a state that doesn't have taxes suddenly imposes even 1%, then the percentage rise will be infinite.
Yet those people will still be paying less taxes than essentially all other developed countries, and may cheer paying the 1% rather than lose more to collapsing infrastructure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @11:38PM
Yes. You believe that by raising taxes you will get more return than by everyone just keeping the money (the gov has a value multiplier > 1) . This is what I said originally, so I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @08:58PM
Did you get better? (a witch once turned me into a NEWT!)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linkdude64 on Wednesday July 19 2017, @03:18PM
A sufficiently developed culture, that is.
No reverence instilled from birth toward the promises of technology and social harmony means seeing every tool only for its most immediate purpose and shortest return on investment - it doesn't matter if it's a lithium battery pack or a brick, it's just something to throw.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 19 2017, @05:49PM
What frequency does it have to reach before it's considered an actual part of the economy?
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Wednesday July 19 2017, @07:12PM (1 child)
I don't get why this would be an argument against transparency: without knowing how much a person contributed, the leader would be no less inclined to arbitrarily punish anyone he doesn't like. With an obvious cycle of revenge when his term ends.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @08:02PM
It also barely has an transparency: only the leader gets to see the amounts contributed. I'd think a "transparent" setup would disclose that to everyone.