Speeding up Bureaucrats by Greasing Them: An Experimental Study

We explore experimentally how active and passive bribing behaviour relates to bureaucratic discretion. The limited and asymmetric power of bureau- crats is captured via an ultimatum game with one proposer and two responders. Both responders have veto power, but only one has the additional option of delay- ing the agreement with a cost for the proposer. We speak of active (passive) 'greasing' when, in order to avoid delay, the responder who has more discretion is offered (demanding) a higher reward. Our findings suggest that greasing bureau- crats is moderately efficient in speeding them up.