Intrinsic Motivation vs. Corruption? Experimental Evidence on the Performance of Officials
SSRN, ISSN: 1556-5068
2023
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Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
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Most Recent News
If You Want to Contain Corruption, Promote Intrinsic Motivation!
by Johann Graf Lambsdorff, Kevin Grubiak, and Katharina Werner From left to right: Johann Graf Lambsdorff, Kevin Grubiak, and Katharina Werner (photos courtesy of the authors) There
Article Description
There are conflicting views as to whether corruption or intrinsic motivation plays a greater role in determining the performance of public officials. We run an experiment that incorporates both viewpoints and assess the relative strength and interplay of these respective factors. The design introduces some realism into an everyday exchange between an Estimator (businessperson) and an Auditor (public official) and induces a gray area between intrinsic motivation, extortion and bribery. The Estimator can make a large transfer in the hope of avoiding unfair treatment (extortion) or obtaining an undeserved benefit (bribery). The Auditor may be intrinsically motivated to fulfill her duty or may be corrupted by transfers. We find that intrinsic motivation has a much higher impact on the performance of Auditors than corruption. In a treatment with punishment, Auditors are significantly less likely to accept a large transfer. But punishment fails to bring about favorable welfare effects due to two forces offsetting each other on the individual level. Intrinsic motivation increases for some subjects, supporting the “expressive law” literature, while it decreases for others, supporting the “crowding-out” literature. We infer that punishing officials is an unproblematic tool for fighting corruption, but its effectiveness is called into question. Policies should focus more on preserving officials’ intrinsic motivation and worry less about their corruptibility.
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