Is corruption distasteful or just another cost of doing business?

Abstract

Using data from a lab experiment carried out in Kenya, we show that while “legitimate” costs and costs imposed by corruption both deter investment, the latter is no more of a disincentive than the former. We interpret the evidence as consistent with the conclusion that our participants viewed corruption as just another cost of doing business. We also experimented with giving participants in some treatments information about the corruption expectations of participants in previous sessions and the actual extent of corruption in previous sessions. We find some evidence that the objective information actually increased investment without changing the participants’ own expectations regarding corruption. That result is compatible with the idea that revealing the level of corruption changes the descriptive norm and facilitates investment in a corrupt environment. © 2021, The Author(s).