Generalizations about African societies being pervasively corrupt are refuted in this innovative paper. Among 25,397 Afrobarometer respondents in 18 countries, 26% report paying a bribe, while 74% do not. Five hypotheses offer explanations: institutional context, inequalities of socio-economic...

Globalization is making corruption important for countries where bureaucratic standards are high as well as low. Survey research shows that not only does the likelihood of bribery differ between EU member states and across continents but also within countries. Bribery affects public services...

To understand the process of bribery we need to integrate measures of individual behaviour and institutional attributes rather than rely exclusively on micro or macro-level measures. Indexes of corruption in national institutions cannot explain how individuals within a country differ in the...

Open data makes transparent whether public officials are conducting their activities in conformity with standards that can be bureaucratic, political or moral. Actions that violate these standards are colloquially lumped together under the heterogeneous heading of corruption. However, the...

Studies find the poor are more likely to pay bribes than the better off, because of lower status. This paper proposes an alternative explanation: institutions matter. Given a choice between public and private services, the better off exit, but they cannot exit from monopoly services. Heckman...

By contrast with generalisations about corruption being pervasive in Africa, empirical studies show that some citizens pay bribes for public services while others do not. Three theoretical explanations for variations — differences in national context, individual attributes and public services...