Corruption and Inequality at the Crossroad: A Multimethod Study of Bribery and Discrimination in Latin America

2010 
How does corruption interact with inequality? To answer this question, we employ a fi eld experiment that examines the manner in which police offi cers in a major Latin American city respond to socioeconomic distinctions when requiring a bribe. In this experiment, four automobile drivers commit identical traffi c violations across a randomized sequence of crossroads, which are monitored by transit police. We identify the effect of citizens' perceived wealth on offi cers' propensity to solicit bribes and on the size of the bribes that they solicit. We complement our experimen- tal results with qualitative fi ndings from interviews with police offi cers. Our core fi nding is that offi cers are more likely to target lower class individuals and let more affl uent drivers off with warnings. The qualitative results suggest that offi cers as- sociate wealth with the capacity to exact retribution and therefore are more likely to demand bribes from poorer individuals. We conclude that a multimethod approach provides a richer account of corrupt behavior than that found in most contemporary research.
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