Social Interactions and Corruption.
Murthy, Adithi.
2015
-
Abstract: Over the last few decades, corruption has become a key issue in many developing and developed countries. Corruption, by nature, is a clandestine activity that people go to great lengths to conceal. Corrupt practices can be very different and can adapt to specific cultural features of given societies. If people are not corrupt by nature, why do corrupt practices exist? What influences ... read moretheir decision to engage in corrupt activities? What makes them stick to the decision? In this thesis, I look at corrupt practices as decisions in a social context. People observe corrupt practices to varying degrees and these may feed the perception that corruption pays. The primary question is: how much does this perception result in engagement in corrupt practices? I find that the perception affects the probability of experiencing corruption significantly, and also affects the levels of corruption experienced. The endogeneity issue that often arises in the social interactions work is tackled using instrumental variables techniques. This work is a prerequisite to identifying key agents in a social group that have a large impact on their neighbors' decision to engage in corruption, which I believe is a policy issue critical to curbing the spread of corruption in an increasingly connected world.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2015.
Submitted to the Dept. of Economics.
Advisor: Yannis Ioannides.
Committee: Jeffrey Zabel.
Keyword: Economics.read less - ID:
- zw12zh291
- Component ID:
- tufts:21489
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
