Conventional wisdom depicts corruption as a tax on incumbent firms. This paper challenges this view in two ways. First …, by arguing that corruption matters not so much because of the value of the bribe ("tax"), but because of another less … studied feature of corruption, namely bribe unavoidability. Second, we argue that the social costs of corruption arise not …

I propose a bribery model in which bureaucratic decisionmaking is decentralized. I establish that bribe extortion is …: high levels of bribery reduce the economy's productivity due to suppression of small businesses. Competition among … bureaucrats might improve the outcome, but does not necessarily decrease the total graft. The choice of corruption fighting …

This essay criticizes the commonplace definition of corruption as the misuse of public office for private gain. Both … elements in this definition are wrong: corruption is also found in the private sector and in some exceptional cases it may not … simply be for private gain. Another problem with prevailing treatments of corruption is their reliance on a utilitarian …

In many cultures and industries gifts are given in order to influence the recipient, often at the expense of a third … party. Examples include business gifts of firms and lobbyists. In a series of experiments, we show that, even without … incentive or informational effects, small gifts strongly influence the recipient's behavior in favor of the gift giver, in …