[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1993.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bribery vs. Extortion: Allowing the Lesser of two Evils

Author

Listed:
  • Fahad Khalil
  • Jacques Lawarrée
  • Sungho Yun
Abstract
Rewards to prevent supervisors from accepting bribes create incentives for extortion. This raises the question whether a supervisor who can engage in bribery and extortion can still be useful in providing incentives. By highlighting the role of team work in forging information, we present a notion of soft information that makes supervision valuable. We show that a fear of inducing extortion may make it optimal to allow bribery, but extortion is never tolerated. Even though both increase incentive cost, extortion penalizes the agent after “good behavior”, while bribery penalizes the agent after “bad behavior”. Since bribery occurs when a violation is detected, the bribe is a penalty for “bad behavior”, and helps somewhat in providing incentive. We find that extortion is a more serious issue when incentives are primarily based on soft information, when the agent has a greater bargaining power while negotiating an illegal payment, or when the agent has weaker outside opportunities. Our analysis provides explanations why extortion may be less of a problem in developed countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Fahad Khalil & Jacques Lawarrée & Sungho Yun, 2007. "Bribery vs. Extortion: Allowing the Lesser of two Evils," CESifo Working Paper Series 1993, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1993
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1993.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1995. "Corruptible Law Enforcers: How Should They Be Compensated?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 145-159, January.
    2. Olsen, Trond E & Torsvik, Gaute, 1998. "Collusion and Renegotiation in Hierarchies: A Case of Beneficial Corruption," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 413-438, May.
    3. Yeon-Koo Che, 1995. "Revolving Doors and the Optimal Tolerance for Agency Collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(3), pages 378-397, Autumn.
    4. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2000. "Investor protection and corporate governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-27.
    5. Bernard Caillaud & Jean Tirole, 2007. "Consensus Building: How to Persuade a Group," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1877-1900, December.
    6. Antoine Faure-Grimaud & Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2003. "Collusion, Delegation and Supervision with Soft Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 253-279.
    7. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 2001. "Corruption and optimal law enforcement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-24, July.
    8. Ariane Lambert-Mogiliansky, 1998. "On optimality of illegal collusion in contracts," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 3(4), pages 303-328.
    9. Roland Strausz, 1997. "Collusion and Renegotiation in a Principal–Supervisor–Agent Relationship," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(4), pages 497-518, December.
    10. Faure-Grimaud Antoine & Laffont Jean-Jacques & Martimort David, 2003. "Risk Averse Supervisors and the Efficiency of Collusion," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, January.
    11. Juan Carrillo, 2000. "Graft, bribes, and the practice of corruption," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/167083, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Juan D. Carrillo, 2000. "Graft, Bribes, and the Practice of Corruption," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 257-288, June.
    13. Baliga, Sandeep, 1999. "Monitoring and Collusion with "Soft" Information," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 434-440, July.
    14. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    15. Johnson, Ronald N & Libecap, Gary D, 1989. "Bureaucratic Rules, Supervisor Behavior, and the Effect on Salaries in the Federal Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 53-82, Spring.
    16. Emilson C. D. Silva & Charles M. Kahn & Xie Zhu, 2007. "Crime and Punishment and Corruption: Who Needs “Untouchables?”," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(1), pages 69-87, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amegashie, J. Atsu & Ouattara, Bazoumanna & Strobl, Eric, 2007. "Moral Hazard and the Composition of Transfers: Theory with an Application to Foreign Aid," MPRA Paper 3158, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 May 2007.
    2. Bond Philip, 2009. "Contracting in the Presence of Judicial Agency," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-34, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fahad Khalil & Jacques Lawarrée & Sungho Yun, 2010. "Bribery versus extortion: allowing the lesser of two evils," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 179-198, March.
    2. Alexander Henke & Fahad Khalil & Jacques Lawarree, 2022. "Honest agents in a corrupt equilibrium," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 762-783, August.
    3. Che, Xiaogang & Huang, Yangguang & Zhang, Le, 2021. "Supervisory efficiency and collusion in a multiple-agent hierarchy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 425-442.
    4. Samuel, Andrew, 2009. "Preemptive collusion among corruptible law enforcers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 441-450, August.
    5. Fahad Khalil & Jacques Lawarrée, 2006. "Incentives For Corruptible Auditors In The Absence Of Commitment," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 269-291, June.
    6. Hiriart, Yolande & Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jerome, 2010. "The public management of risk: Separating ex ante and ex post monitors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1008-1019, December.
    7. Alessandro De Chiara & Luca Livio, 2012. "Truthful Reporting, Moral Hazard and Purely Soft Information," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2012-029, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. VafaI, Kouroche, 2005. "Abuse of authority and collusion in organizations," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 385-405, June.
    9. De Chiara, Alessandro & Livio, Luca, 2017. "The threat of corruption and the optimal supervisory task," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 172-186.
    10. Charles Angelucci & Antonio Russo, 2022. "Petty Corruption And Citizen Reports," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 831-848, May.
    11. Dongsoo Shin, 2007. "Contracts under Wage Compression: A Case of Beneficial Collusion," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(1), pages 143-157, July.
    12. Dam, Kaniṣka & Roy Chowdhury, Prabal, 2021. "Monitoring and incentives under multiple-bank lending: The role of collusive threats," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    13. Jaesoo Kim & Dongsoo Shin, 2023. "Vertical Relationships with Hidden Interactions," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-21, October.
    14. Nobuo Yoshida, 2000. "The Optimal Combination of Corruption Reforms: Is a Comprehensive Approach a Good Idea?," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1335, Econometric Society.
    15. Corgnet, Brice & Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2013. "Are you a good employee or simply a good guy? Influence costs and contract design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 259-272.
    16. Jamil, Faisal & Ahmad, Eatzaz, 2019. "Policy considerations for limiting electricity theft in the developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 452-458.
    17. Raffaele Fiocco & Mario Gilli, 2016. "Bargaining and collusion in a regulatory relationship," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 117(2), pages 93-116, March.
    18. Andrew Samuel & Ajit Mishra, 2022. "Does it matter who extorts? Extortion by competent and incompetent enforcers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(3), pages 328-344, July.
    19. Fahad Khalil & Doyoung Kim & Jacques Lawarrée, 2013. "Contracts offered by bureaucrats," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(4), pages 686-711, December.
    20. Eskeland, Gunnar S. & Thiele, Henrik, 1999. "Corruption under moral hazard," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2204, The World Bank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1993. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.