Risk Attitude, Beliefs, and Information in a Corruption Game - An Experimental Analysis

20 Pages Posted: 29 Oct 2012

See all articles by Siegfried Berninghaus

Siegfried Berninghaus

Institut fuer Statistik und Mathematische Wirtscha

Sven Haller

Otto-von-Guericke University - Faculty of Economics and Management

Tyll Kruger

University of Bielefeld, Research Center BiBoS

Thomas Neumann

Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

Stephan Schosser

Otto-von-Guericke University - Faculty of Economics and Management

Bodo Vogt

Bielefeld University - Center for Mathematical Economics

Date Written: July 10, 2012

Abstract

For our experiment on corruption, we designed a coordination game to model the influence of risk attitudes, beliefs, and information on behavioral choices and determined the equilibria. We observed that the risk attitude of the participant failed to explain their choices between corrupt and non-corrupt behavior. Instead, their beliefs appeared to be a better predictor of whether or not they would opt for the corrupt alternative. Furthermore, varying the quantity of information available to the players (modeled by changing the degree of uncertainty) provided additional insight into the players’ propensity to engage in corrupt behavior. The experimental results show that a higher degree of uncertainty in the informational setting reduces corruption.

Keywords: corruption, game theory, experiment, risk attitude, beliefs

JEL Classification: D73, K42, C91, C92

Suggested Citation

Berninghaus, Siegfried and Haller, Sven and Kruger, Tyll and Neumann, Thomas and Schosser, Stephan and Vogt, Bodo, Risk Attitude, Beliefs, and Information in a Corruption Game - An Experimental Analysis (July 10, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2168295 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2168295

Siegfried Berninghaus

Institut fuer Statistik und Mathematische Wirtscha ( email )

Building 20.21
Universitaet Karlsruhe Gebaeude 20.21
76128 Karlsruhe
Germany

Sven Haller

Otto-von-Guericke University - Faculty of Economics and Management ( email )

Universitätsplatz 2
Magdeburg, 39106
Germany

Tyll Kruger

University of Bielefeld, Research Center BiBoS ( email )

Universitätsstraße 25
Bielefeld, NRW 33613
Germany

Thomas Neumann (Contact Author)

Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg ( email )

Universitätspl. 2
PSF 4120
Magdeburg, D-39106
Germany

Stephan Schosser

Otto-von-Guericke University - Faculty of Economics and Management ( email )

Universitätspl. 2
PSF 4120
Magdeburg, D-39106
Germany

Bodo Vogt

Bielefeld University - Center for Mathematical Economics ( email )

Postfach 10 01 31
Bielefeld, D-33501
Germany

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