Does Corruption Promote Emigration An Empirical Examination
(完整word版)英语六级作文1200字:反腐败斗争(Anti Corruption Campaign)

英语六级作文1200字:反腐败斗争(Anti Corruption Campaign)corruption cases are frequently reported by news media. for eample, some high ranking officials help themselves to state fund illegally. for another eample, some leaders abuse power . whats more, malpractice, bribery and other corrupt behaviour do much harm. as a result, the healthy development of the economy is seriously affected.as china continues its reforms and opens wider to the outside world, anti corruption is a question of priorities. our government has realized the seriousness of corruption problems. corruption presents a dreadful threat to state interests. corruption cases seriously damage efforts to build a clean and honest government,undoubtedly dampen peoples enthusiasm and heavily affect stability.in the future, to cement the fruits that reform has borne, an even greater effort is needed in the battle against corrupt behaviour. governments at all levels should take more effective measures to combat corruption. laws already in effect must be strictly enforced . the implementation of anti corruption programs should target every part of china. anti corruption agencies should intensify crackdown on bribery, attach greater importance to the anti corruption campaign.。
关于腐败的英语论文

CorruptionThe report went out that The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has decided to remove Lei Zhifu from the position of Chongqing City District Committee Secretary. There are many press exposures that Lei Zhifu, who pressured an 18-year-old girl to maintain a sexual relationship with him has been charged with abusing his power for private gain, and helping people to fake retirement documents to receive pensions, selling public property at low prices and helping his relatives make illicit gains.Corruption has become such a serious problem in China. It must be accepted that harmfulness of the corruption is very greatly, especially in politics, it will hamper the public power to normally act, influence fair of the society, led to society contradiction become acute and it is an important element to destroy the society firm. All that said, corruption has already become a social public hazard and a domestic perplexed problem.While corruption has grown in scope and complexity in china, anti-corruption policies, on the other hand, have not changed much. Communist-style mass campaigns with anti-corruption slogans, moral exhortations, and prominently displayed miscreants, are still a key part of official policy, much as they were in the 1950s. This leniency ofpunishment has been the main reasons corruption is such a serious problem in China.Look around the world, in many countries systematic, anti-corruption measures include independent trade and professional associat ions, which help limit corruption by promulgating codes of ethics and imposing quick penalties, watchdog groups like NGOs, and a free media. In China, these measures do not exist as a result of the CCP’s means of rule. Developed foreign country has been setting an example with his own conduct. Why couldn’t our government learn from other countries’ strong points to offset the shortage of regulatory compliance? Strengthen education, develop democracy, improve the legal system, tighten supervision, make institutional innovation and incorporate counter-corruption in all our major policy measures. In a word, we must pursue several strategies at once so as to prevent and tackle corruption at its source.。
如何根除腐败 How to Eradicate Corruption 外国学生英语作文

How to Eradicate Corruption >How to Eradicate Corruption Essay:The term corruption is defined as a dishonest or deceitful act. Corruption in civil matters is often considered criminal. Corruption is mostly an act of fraudulence carried out by people who are in positions of authority. In India, corruption has been an issue of concern for years now.Corruption has been prevalent in society since the shifting of powers from the people to the opportunistic authorities. The British’s advent in India started to significantly affect the middleclass, who gradually started occupying essential jobs in the country with their education. This sudden change in power made them greedy and more prone to bribery.Long and Short Essays on How to Eradicate Corruption for Students and Kids in EnglishWe are providing students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words and a short essay of 150 words on the topic of how to eradicate corruption.Long Essay on How to Eradicate Corruption 500 Words in EnglishLong Essay on How to Eradicate Corruption is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.Corruption can be defined as a dishonest and fraudulent act, mostly practised by people of authority. It includes civil misconduct among opportunistic leaders. In India, corruption has been a norm for years now. Even the British called the Indian officials corrupt.Methods Of Corruption:Corruption can be of varied types.Bribery: Bribery is the most common form of corruption through which people in posts of authority misuse their power to direct services according to their interests. Many material and monetary gifts are offered by people to these high officials for running certain benefits to their advantages. These are mostly government officials who are susceptible to these fraudulent acts.Financial Fraud: Financial fraud is also called Embezzlement. This is the act of withholding assets of the public for theft.Corruption Of Politicians: This is one of the most notable types of corruption, where the people elected for public interests misuse their power for personal gains. There are little to no ways of ever identifying these corruptions in a broken system like India.Nepotism: Nepotism is a form of corruption where the people of authority reserve specific posts and places of high prestige for the people of either their own family or acquaintances.Steps To Eradicate Corruption:Increasing Salary: Since Government officials are the most susceptible to corruption, it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure maximum satisfaction of the employees so that they don’t engage in activities like these. It has been found out that this fraudulence occurs because of the low salary that is paid to the employees. It is often not enough for the officials, and hence they resort to illegal activities. Therefore, the Government should ensure a fair salary to its employees.Increasing The Number Of Employees: The lack of efficient workers in the governmentoffices often leads to slowing down the critical work. This little progress makes bribery to be the only solution for the fast delivery of work. If t hese employees’ workload is lessened by employing more numbers of employees, then the efficiency might be affected positively.Legislation: The Legislation of a country is the most crucial tool to fight corruption. The laws against corruption can be made more stringent to stop officials from corrupt activities. The punishment after breaking the law should also be more robust and harder to pay.Supervision- Installing cameras and increasing surveillance in government offices or places susceptible to corruption can also minimize the activities. Officials will have a fear of getting caught more often, and rise will mitigate corruption.Check Inflation- The Government should always keep inflation in check because as the price rises for bare essentials, many employees feel their salary to be less than what they deserve and indulge in corrupt activities.We also have to keep in mind the corrupt politicians who exercise their power even in thecourt of law and the entire judicial system. These types of corruption can only be stopped if people elect representatives based on their work and ethics rather than their political supremacy.Short Essay on How to Eradicate Corruption 150 Words in EnglishShort Essay on How to Eradicate Corruption is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.Corruption is an act of fraudulence often practised by people with authority. These people misuse their power and control their interests. There are different types of corruption. Bribery isthe most common form of corruption visible where mostly the government officials take gifts and money from people as bribes to complete their desired works. Other forms are financial frauds, political frauds, and nepotism.You can now access more Essay Writing on this topicSteps To Eradicate Corruption-Varied steps can be taken to eradicate corruption. The Government can increase the employees’ salary since most corruption takes place due to the employees’ dissatisfaction.Some other steps which can be undertaken are strict legislation and strong judicial supervision increased surveillance on the employees and checking of inflation. It is the responsibility of the Government to take these steps to stop corruption. The Government should also try to ensure that the politicians in power do not endorse or associate themselves with corrupt activities.10 Lines on How to Eradicate Corruption Essay in English1. People of high authority are susceptible to corrupt activities.2. Bribery is the most commontype of corruption. 3. India has a high rate of corruption. 4. Politicians are often engaged in it.5. Strong legislation can curb fraud.6. Lack of ethics and morality is a cause of corruption.7. People are often discontented with the system and hence, resort to corruption.8. The Right to Information Act is a crucial one to stop corruption.9. Political Corruption is the worst. 10. Most of the financial frauds in the world are also from India.FAQ’s on How to Eradicate Corruption EssayQuestion 1.Can corruption be curbed?Answer:Yes, it is possible to curb corruption through vital measures.Question 2.Why does corruption take place?Answer:Corruption results from people’s growing discontentment with the available resources for which they become greedy.Question 3.Name Legislation on Corruption.Answer:The Right to Information Act is legislation that might help to curb corruption.Question 4.What is the essential thing required to have a corruption-free country?Answer:The essential thing required for a free corruption-free country is the necessary knowledge and awareness of moral and ethics.。
NBER WORKING PAPER 反腐运动对中国奢侈品进口的影响

The Impact of Xi Jinping’s Anti-CorruptionCampaign on Luxury Imports in China∗(Preliminary Draft)Nancy Qian†and Jaya Wen‡April2,2015AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of a national anti-corruption pol-icy in China focused on reducing bribes and luxury consumption of gov-ernment officials.We document that it reduced the imports of luxurygoods that are easily observed by the public by approximately55%,194million2012USD,while having no effect on goods that can be consumedaway from public view.Keywords:Corruption,Political Economy,DevelopmentJEL:P15,D73∗We thank Abhijit Banerjee,Ray Fisman and Mikhail Golosov and the economics faculty at Fudan University and SUFE for their insights.†Corresponding Author:nancy.qian@‡jaya.wen@1IntroductionIt is widely believed that corruption hinders growth(e.g.,Fisman and Svens-son2007;Mauro1995;Murphy,Shleifer and Vishny1993),and that the levels of bureaucratic corruption are higher in countries with non-democratic govern-ments because of weaker political competition and public pressure(La Porta, Lopez-de Silanes,Shleifer and Vishny1999;Shleifer and Vishny1993)and when government revenues are high(e.g.,Brollo et al.2013).This can be par-ticularly problematic in transition economies where government officials have considerable discretion over determinants of economic activity,like privatiza-tion of state assets and access to licenses critical for entrepreneurial ventures (Shleifer1997).The main policy tool for combatting large-scale corruption is government policy.However,there is little evidence on the effectiveness of such policies.1We address this important question by studying the effectiveness of a na-tional anti-corruption campaign in China.China has been one of the world’s fastest growing economy for three decades as it transitioned from a planned to a market economy,and has all of the conditions for high corruption that we de-scribed earlier.Official corruption in China is believed to be widespread,while enforcement is believed to be weak.2The odds of jail sentence for a corrupt official is estimated to be less than three percent(Pei2007).3There is a con-1See the conclusion in the literature overview by?OlkenPande2012).2For example,the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection,the Communist Party’s anti-corruption group,found that106,000officials were guilty of corruption in2009(BBC (2010)),and the median bribe amount per case rose from$121,000in2000to$250,000in 2009(in constant2012U.S.Dollars).Pei(2007)estimated that the total direct costs of corruption in2007could total$86billion.3Prosecutions for corruption are uncommon,although there have been several prominent1sensus among academics and policymakers that corruption is one of China’s largest obstacles to continued economic growth,which has slowed down to 7.5in2015,the lowest pace since1990(e.g.,Oster,2014;Feldstein2012,Pei 2007).At the end of2013,Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping introduced concrete measures for increasing the investigation of and the punishment for corruption.Relative to previous anti-corruption campaigns,this differed in its focus on reducing corruption at all levels of government rather than focusing only on a few high-profile cases of extreme corruption.This intensification was viewed as a significant policy shift and as the government making a concrete and long-run commitment against corruption.The number of investigations increased by around30%to182,000in just one year.The plan placed special emphasis on the types of corruption most likely to spark public protests,such as bribe-taking,waste and extravagance.This followed intense press coverage of government officials wearing expensive European luxury brands of items such as jewelry and clothing.4The success of the policy is unclear ex ante.On the one hand,unlike many countries with high corruption,China is know for its high state capacity.This makes the threats of investigation and punishment credible and facilitates the implementation of central government policies.On the other hand,detection and well-publicized cases.One prominent example is Bo Xilai,the ex-party chief of the city of Chongqing.He was charged for receiving over twenty million yuan in bribes and embezzling an additionalfive million yuan,and was sentenced to life in prison in September 2013(Reuters(2013)).Another example occurred in October2014.A retired commander of the People’s Liberation Army,Gen.Xu Caihou,confessed to taking bribes for favors and promotions(NYT(2014a)).4See Section2for a detailed background discussion.2is costly and it is difficult for the government to conduct in-depth investiga-tions given that they are targeting such a large number of potentially corrupt officials.A modern proverb amongst government officials advises one to“eat quietly,take gently and play secretly”(Jacobs,2013).This suggest that offi-cials may be able to evade detection by reducing only the most conspicuous corruption.The principal goal of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the in-tensification of anti-corruption policies at the end of2013.Specifically,we examine whether the policy led to a differential reduction in conspicuous con-sumption.Given the limited availability of consumption data,we proxy for consumption with imports.We classify jewelry as conspicuous and other lux-ury goods known as common gifts given as bribes,but which can be consumed outside of the public eye as inconspicuous(e.g.,expensive foods and alcohol consumed at banquets,art,etc.).5To interpret the empirical results,we provide a simple conceptual frame-work,where anti-corruption policies are a tax on conspicuous consumption since they are more easily detected.The reform effectively reduces income and the consumption of all goods.The relative tax increase on conspicuous goods also causes corrupt officials to substitute towards other forms of consump-tion.Thus,both the income and substitution effect will reduce conspicuous consumption.The net effects of the two forces on inconspicuous consump-tion is ambiguous.However,if inconspicuous consumption does not increase, 5Note that other goods such as high-end clothing and handbags are also conspicuous. Unfortunately,the categorization of the COMTRADE data are too crude for us to iden-tify high end times from other imports.See the Background and Data sections for more discussion.3then total corruption has most likely declined since inconspicuous consump-tion,especially inconspicuous luxury goods,are likely to be substitutes for conspicuous luxury goods.Our main empirical evidence is descriptive and similar to an event study, where we examine monthly import data before and after the intensification of the anti-corruption campaign.Wefind that the reform reduced the imports of jewelry.The reduction is immediate and persistent over time.In contrast, wefind no change in total imports.To assess the magnitudes,we employ a differences-in-differences strategy and estimate the differential decline of jew-elry imports after the policy change.The identification assumes that the only change experienced by jewelry imports relative to other imports was the anti-corruption policy.We control for season effects,commodityfixed effects and yearfixed effects.Wefind that the reform reduced jewelry imports by ap-proximately55%,which is equivalent to a total reduction of approximately 194million2012USD over the seven months after the reform for which we have data.These results are consistent with the reform reducing conspicuous consumption and total corruption to the extent that jewelry and other imports are substitutes.There are two important caveats for interpreting these results as a reduc-tion in total corruption.First,all other imports include goods that are not substitutes for conspicuous consumption,such as industrial inputs.Second, like all studies of corruption,we cannot observe the entire consumption bas-ket,and in particular,the consumption of domestically produced goods.We address both of these concerns by separately examining the imports of incon-4spicuous luxury goods that are known to be common gifts for bribes.If one believes that these are substitutes for imported jewelry and as good or bet-ter substitutes for imported jewelry as domestically produced inconspicuous goods,thenfinding that the reform had no effect on these imports would pro-vide stronger evidence that the reform reduced corruption.Indeed,wefind no effect on inconspicuous imports.We discuss other caveats in the paper after we present the results.Taken together,the results suggest that Xi’s commitment to root out cor-ruption has probably been effective in reducing conspicuous consumption and total corruption.However,there is little effect on less visible corruption and the reduction on total corruption is small in magnitude.For policymakers,our results provide a mixed message.On the one hand, the stark reduction in conspicuous imports is promising.On the other hand, the Chinese government has higher bureaucratic capacity and better ability to commit to investigations and punishments than most other governments of developing and transitional economies.That one of the most intense anti-corruption campaigns its ever undertaken has not spilled over to less conspic-uous forms of corruption is consistent with the concern that the detection of corruption is very difficult.Our results contribute to the literature on corruption in developing coun-tries.Previous work has provided important evidence on how the level of cor-ruption can be influence by increased transparency and monitoring.6These 6Banerjee and Hanna(2012)conducts a randomized experiment andfind that increas-ing information about candidate qualification and past performance to voters reduces vote buying in Indian slums.Ferraz and Finan(2011)find that politicians in Brazil who face re-election incentives steal less than those who do not.Olken(2007)shows that increased5studies typically focus on localized or regional interventions.We add to this literature by providing evidence from large scale national reform.In showing that imports can be used to detect corruption,our study also adds to the literature that measures corruption.7We also contribute to studies of corruption in China,which has only re-cently started to receive attention from researchers.For example,Fisman and Wei(2004)investigates tax evasion andfind that the gap between reported exports from Hong Kong and reported imports from China is increasing in tariffrates.Fisman and Wang(2014)detects corruption in state asset sales auditing of road expenditure data reduces missing funds in Indonesia.Reinikka and Svens-son(2005)find that the increase in information due to a newspaper campaign increased spending in schools and school enrollment in Uganda.Muralidharan et al.(2014)finds that the introduction of Smartcards reduces graft in Indias NREG program.Lewis-Faupel et al.(2014)finds that electronic procurement im-proves the quality,but has no effect on the prices that governments pay for infrastructure development in India and Indonesia.Burgess et al.(2012)finds that in Indonesia,when revenues from oil increases,illegal loggin falls.Niehaus and Sukhtankar(2013)find that an increase in the wages of daily workers reduced theft of piece rate jobs.Bai et al.(2013)finds that economic growth in Vietnam reduces corruption.Burgess et al.(2012)find that as the number of bureucracies that can facilitate illegal loggin increases,loggin rates increase and prices decline.Olken and Barron(2009)find that in Indonesia,the average price paid by trucks at road check is decreasing in the number of check points.7These have observed corruption by comparing changes in stock values of politically connected and unconnectedfirms(e.g.,Fisman2001,2006);comparing wages of public and private sector workers(Gorodnichenko and Peter,2007),by direct observation through audits(e.g.,Brollo et al.,2010;Ferraz and Finan,2008,2011),from expert surveys(e.g., Banerjee and Pande,2009),surveys of bribe payers(e.g.,Svensson,2003),direct observation (e.g.,Olken and Barron,2009;McMillan and Zoido,2004;Sequeira and Djankov,2010), by comparing government expenditure before and after corruption has presumably taken place(e.g.,Fisman and Wei,2004;Reinikka and Svensson,2004),by comparing the same measure of government provision from two different surveys(e.g.,Niehaus and Sukhtankar, 2010;Olken2006),and official and market prices for oil(e.g.,Hsieh and Moretti,2006), and by examining whether public officials are more likely to benefit from public transfers (e.g.Besley,2012;Niehaus et al.,2012;Olken,2007).Also,see Olken and Pande(2012)for an overview of the literature on measuring corruption and Zitzewitz(2012)for a review of the more general literature on detecting bad behavior.See Banerjee and Hanna(2012)for a framework for analyzing corruption of public bureaucrats.6by comparing prices of publicly traded assets to non-publicly traded assets. Fang et al.(2014)compares bureaucrat and non-bureaucrat purchasers of real estate andfind that bureaucrats receive discounts in housing purchases and that the magnitude of the discount is increasing in the seniority of the offi-cial.In examining luxury consumption,we are closely related to Fisman and Wei(2009),which examine the smuggling of art and cultural property from China.In examining import data,we add to Lan and Li(2013),which ex-amines political cycles in watch imports.Our results are consistent with the growing evidence that there is significant corruption in China.We differ from earlier studies in examining the effectiveness of anti-corruption reforms,and in distinguishing between conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption.8 The paper is organized as follows.Section2discusses the background. Section3provides a simple model to illustrate how the anti-corruption reform could reduce the importation of luxury goods.Section4presents the event study.Section5presents the regression results.Section6concludes.2Background2.1Anti-CorruptionXi Jinping became the highest ranked leader,the Communist Party Secretary General,of China in ing to power in the aftermath of the internationally publicized Bo Xilai scandal,political analysts noted that 8Relative to Lan and Li(2013),which also uses COMTRADE data,our study differs in that we examine a policy that explicitly targets corruption and we use monthly level instead of annual level data.The policy we examine has no effect on watches.7Xi was politically obligated to take action against corruption(Buckley2014b).When Xi Jinping entered office,he announced several bans for bureau-crats and employees of state-ownedfinancial companies.These included the banning of extravagant house purchases(Reuters2012b),alcohol consump-tion at military functions(Reuters2012a),state-funded banquets for military officials(News2012)and radio and TV advertisements for luxury goods like watches and jewelry(Reuters2013).However,these announcements were not accompanied by any enforcement measures.Concrete actions for investigation and punishment were not taken until late 2013.We interpret two events as a critical intensification of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption reform.On November15th,2013,the Third Plenum of the18th Communist Party of China(CPC)released a new manifesto,which introduced a host of social reforms and promised the Party would“root out corruption”(Denyer,2013).In his speech during the Third Plenum,Xi Jinping warned that the struggle to contain corruption would be difficult,but the government “must not waver”(Blanchard and Li,2013).Over a month later,on December 25th,the CPC published afive-year anti-graft plan(Blanchard and Li,2013, Xinhua,2013),in which it vowed to continue itsfight against corruption by implementing more investigations and greater punishments.The plan placed special emphasis on the types of corruption most likely to spark public protests, including bribe-taking,extravagance,and waste(Blanchard and Li,2013.Observers interpreted these two events as an intensification of the anti-corruption drive,as well as a signal of the government’s long-term commitment to this area.A note released by Goldman Sachs in early2014stated that“the8anti-corruption language in the Third Plenum isfirmer and more comprehen-sive than previous comments from President Xi Jinping”and that“the recently released anti-corruptionfive-year plan adds more reform focus areas”(Shaffer, 2014).Ma Huaide,the vice president of China University of Political Science and Law,stated that thefive-year plan“showcases the Party’s resolution in combating corruption in the nextfive years”(Blanchard and Li,2013).And Deutsche Bank reported that“the impact of the government’s anti-corruption measures in2013[was]longer and bigger in scope than expected”(Dawson, 2014).Because these two events occurred in quick succession,We interpret the announcements in November and December of2013as a substantive intensification of anti-corruption policies.Thus,our analysis will define the post reform period to be January2014and afterwards.Political analysts consider Xi’s anti-corruption drive to be“more far-reaching and lasting than any other”(Economist2014).According to Harvard Sinolo-gist and Political Scientist Anthony Saich,“This is the most ambitious anti-corruption campaign since at least Mao’s days”(Oster,2014).Previous efforts have focused on isolated cases in which the target was one official and close associates.For example,the well-publicized prosecution of Bo Xilai and his wife prior to Xi’s entry to office follows this pattern.In contrast,the new push by the General Secretary is characterized by a larger scope of investigation and a willingness to prosecute higher-level officials(Buckley2014b).Teams from the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline In-spection have been sent on nation-wide audits are part of thefive-year plan against corruption(Oster,2014).The total number of corruption cases in-9creased significantly to182,000,up by30%,under Xi(Economy2014).The large increase in the number of investigations is a mixed message with respect to the effectiveness of the campaign.On the one hand,it is consistent with the view that Xi’s efforts to root out corruption are sincere.On the other hand,the rapid increase and the sheer number of investigations can make it easy for corrupt officials to evade detection since it is impossible to conduct an in-depth and detailed investigation of each individual.Our analysis investigates this by examining whether the anti-corruption policy caused a relatively larger reduction in conspicuous corruption.2.2Luxury GoodsA major aspect of Chinese corruption is the exchange of favors for establishing personal ties;such favors frequently take the form of gifts and banquets.This practice is used to obtain privileged access to government services,flatter im-mediate supervisors,maintain contractual relationships,and reinforce loyalty in protégées(Heidenheimer and Johnston2011).The giving and receiving of gifts to government officials has a long historical precedent(e.g.,Steidlmeier1999,Tatlow,2011,Asma,2014).Gifts are used to bribe politicians for future favors and to reward them for existing special treatment.Gifts are also frequently purchased with state money(Barboza, 2009),and are believed to comprise up to25percent of all luxury spending in China(Wen,2013).The practice takes place year-round but spikes during specific events,like the National People’s Congress,where Communist Party delegates who hope to establish special relationships with peers and superiors10will exchange(Barboza,2009).Precious metals and stones are frequently used as gifts.Gifts of gold often take the form of jewelry(Mukherji and Wang,2014).It has been observed that jewelry is“a favorite for people sending gifts to government officials”(Bar-boza,2009).The fact that jewelry is easily observed and hence conspicuous is important for our study.Other conspicuous gifts include expensive hand-bags,watches and clothing.However,because the data is too crude for us to measure these imports,we will not examine them as outcome variables.Other valuable items known to be given to officials as bribes are less observ-able.For example,artwork is another medium of Chinese corruption.Indeed, the use of art in“bribery of public officials is so widespread that the Chinese have coined a term to describe[it]...‘yahui’or‘elegant bribery”’(Barboza et al.,2013).After Wen Qiang,a former deputy police chief of Chongqing, was arrested for corruption,investigators found over one hundred works of art in his home,including ivory sculptures,a stone Buddha head,and valuable calligraphy scrolls(Barboza et al.,2013).Similarly,lavish banqueting,another well-known form of corruption among Chinese officials(Shaoting and Yunjie,2013,Spegele,2012,BBC,2012,is dif-ficult for the public to observe since they mostly take place behind closed doors(Chow and Gu2014).In2012,it constituted eighty percent of food waste for all of China,which was estimated to have a value of$32billion U.S. dollars(Burkitt and Chin,2013).This totalfigure reflects both the extrava-gance of the banquets and the number of banquets given.A publicized and representative case is that of Wei Mingsheng,who,after promotion to a promi-11nent position in Shanxi province,“attended more than sixty farewell banquets, hosted by75work units,within51days”(Heidenheimer and Johnston2009). Banquets feature expensive seafood dishes like abalone,sharkfin,sea cucum-ber and imported beef steaks(Ge,2013,Carlson,2013)and imported alcohol such as wine and champagne(Reuters2012a).Based on interviews conducted by the authors,it is not uncommon for officials to host dinners which cost up to500,000RMB for ten people.In summary,the popularity of luxury European imports suggests that a reduction in corruption may be reflected by a reduction in the import of luxury goods.Moreover,the difference in observability between jewelry and other luxury goods such as art and banquets(i.e.,expensive foods)means that we can compare the imports of these two types of commodities to examine whether the anti-corruption policy had differential effects according to the visibility of the consumption.Note that the luxury imports mentioned in the press correspond closely with the items banned by the government(e.g.,jewelry,alcohol,banquets). This is important for motivating our focus on these goods in the next section.Also note that the anecdotal evidence typically reports luxury items being given as bribes.It is also possible that bribes are given in the form of cash or kickbacks and conspicuous consumption reflects bureaucrats purchasing luxury imports.This does not affect the interpretation of our analysis.123Conceptual FrameworkWe provide a simple model to help motivate and interpret the empirical anal-ysis.The goal of the model is to understand how to think about changes in total corruption in relation to changes in the imports of conspicuous and inconspicuous goods.Consider the general case below,where the bureaucrat maximizes his utility subject to a budget constraintmaxU(x,y,e)x,y,es.t.qx−we+y=0.x is non-conspicuous goods,y is conspicuous goods and e is effort towards corruption.Let U be strictly concave,so that the maximum is unique.Let x∗,y∗,e∗be the optimal choices.q is the price of non-conspicuous goods and w is the wage of corrupt behavior(e.g.,bribe),the price of the conspicuous good,y,is normalized to1.Consider the introduction of the anti-corruption campaign.We assume that the probability of corruption being detected is p(y),where p is increasing in y.If the corruption is detected,the bureaucrat’s utility with punishment is U0,which we assume to be a small andfinite number.Now,the bureaucrat solves(1−p(y))U(x,y,e)+p(y)U0maxx,y,e13s.t.px−we+y=0.Let(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)be the new equilibrium.Lemma1:y∗∗≤y∗with strict inequality if(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)=(x∗,y∗,e∗).9At this level of generality,nothing can be said about behavior of x and e.Thereason is as follows.Since y decreases with corruption,holding everythingconstant,the bureaucrat will have higher income.Therefore,she would like toincrease both the consumption of x and consumption of leisure(i.e.,decreasee)due to the income effect.On the other hand,the reduction of y mayeither increase or decrease the marginal utility of consuming x,depending onwhether x and y are substitutes or complements(the same comment appliesto leisure).This substitution effect thus causes the net effect of the reform tobe ambiguous.However,if consumption of x does not change,then we infer that effort,i.e.,corruption,decreases.9Proof.Optimality impliesU(x∗,y∗,e∗)≥U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)(1−p(y∗∗))U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)+p(y∗∗)U0≥(1−p(y∗))U(x∗,y∗,e∗)+p(y∗)U0Therefore(1−p(y∗∗))U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)+p(y∗∗)U0≥(1−p(y∗))U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)+p(y∗)U0 p(y∗∗)[U0−U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)]≥p(y∗)[U0−U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)] (p(y∗)−p(y∗∗))[U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)−U0]≥0Since U0is low,[U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)−U0]>0and p(y∗)≥p(y∗∗).If(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗)= (x∗,y∗,e∗),then by the fact that there is a unique maximum,U(x∗,y∗,e∗)> U(x∗∗,y∗∗,e∗∗),and therefore all of the inequalities above become strict.14Lemma2:If x∗=x∗∗then e∗∗<e∗.10This model shows that an intensification of anti-corruption policy will have in-come and substitution effects.The reform acts as a tax on corruption,and thus reduces the income of the bureaucrat,which in turn reduces consumption of all goods.If conspicuous and inconspicuous goods are substitutes,then the sub-stitution effect will further reduce the consumption of conspicuous goods and increase the consumption of inconspicuous goods.Thus,both forces reduces the consumption of conspicuous goods.Furthermore,we can infer the effect of the policy on corruption from the consumption of inconspicuous goods.If it does not increase,then we know that the policy reduced corruption(assuming that the two types of goods are substitutes).Since we only observe imports and cannot observe the entire consumption bundle,inference about total corruption will depend on the relative substi-tutability of inconspicuous imports and conspicuous imports with respect to the substitutability of domestically produced goods and conspicuous imports. If inconspicuous goods are not less substitutable,then there will be no reason to think that the consumption of domestic goods respond to the reform when the consumption of inconspicuous goods does not.Thus,in that case,not observing and increase in inconspicuous imports will imply that the reform reduced corruption.The simple model provides two testable hypothesis.First,if it is easier to detect conspicuous consumption,then the intensification of the anti-corruption campaign will reduce conspicuous imports.Second,if conspicuous and in-10Proof.Follows directly from the budget constraint.15conspicuous imports are substitutes,and inconspicuous imports are not less substitutable for conspicuous imports than domestically produced goods,then a reduction in corruption effort will mean that the import of inconspicuous imports does not decline.4Descriptive EvidenceThe main evidence for our study is descriptive and similar to an event study. We will simply examine theflow of conspicuous and inconspicuous imports into China before and after the policy change at the end of2013.We use monthly COMTRADE data that are available at the monthly level. The main sample begins in January2011and ends in July2014,the last month for which there is complete data.We define the anti-corruption campaign to begin in January2014.Thus,we have36months of pre-reform data and six months of post reform data.The composition of importing countries change over time.Thus,we organized the data to a commodity-level panel.The main dependent variable is the value of imported goods.We deflate this so that it is measured in constant2012USD.Table1shows the mean import values for the categories that we examine,as well as for their subcate-gories.To test thefirst hypothesis,we plot the import of conspicuous goods over time.Our conspicuous good is four-digit COMTRADE category of jewelry,“Jewelry and parts,containing precious gems”.As we discussed earlier in Sec-tion2,jewelry is a common gift for bribing officials,officials can also purchase16。
What is corruption corrupting A philosophical viewpoint

What is corruption corrupting?A philosophical viewpointMichel DionFaculte´d’administration,Universite ´de Sherbrooke,Sherbrooke,Canada AbstractPurpose –The purpose of this paper is to see to what extent philosophers (from Plato to Rousseau)have described the phenomenon of corruption in a way that is relevant for corrupt practices in globalized markets.Design/methodology/approach –The paper analyzes five levels of corruption from a philosophical viewpoint:corruption of principles (“ontic/spiritual/axiological corruption”),corruption of moral behavior (“moral corruption”),corruption of people (“social corruption”),corruption of organizations (“institutional corruption”),and corruption of states (“national/societal/cultural corruption”).Findings –The paper finds that actual forms of corruption are basically grounded in prior phenomena of corruption,whether it is the corruption of principles,the corruption of moral behavior,the corruption of people,the corruption of organizations,or the corruption of states.In each case,philosophers have described the deep and broad effects of corruption.Their criticism is quite close to the way the social impact of corruption is presently circumscribed.Originality/value –The paper addresses the issue of corruption in a philosophical way,and then tends to enhance the social relevance of philosophical discourse when dealing with corrupt practices.Keywords Corruption,Philosophy,International marketingPaper type Conceptual paper IntroductionWaldman (1974)defined corruption as including the following components:(1)a public official,(2)who misuses his authority,position,or power,and as a result,(3)violates some existing,legal norm in his or her particular country.The corrupt act is (4)usually done in secret and (5)is for personal gain in wealth or status or in preferment of family,friends,ethnic or religious groups.In collusive forms of corruption,(6)an outside party is involved (e.g.foreign businessmen).However,it is self-evident that the main agent of corruption is not always a public official.The phenomenon of corruption implies three possible combinations of actors:public (corrupt agent)-private (corrupting agent),private (corrupt)-private (corrupting),public (corrupt)-public (corrupting).That is why most of authors focus on the act of corruption itself rather than the agents who are involved in this phenomenon.Budima (2006,p.410)defines corruption simply as “a private gain at public expenses”.Okogbule (2006,p.102)mentioned that the public sector often creates the opportunities for public officers to be involved in corrupt activities,so that we should never consider corruption only from the perspective of public officials.Moreover,Okogbule (2006,p.94)said that most of definitions of corruption converge on one point:corruption is:[...]a device or strategy usually employed to sway people away from the right course of action,duty or conduct either in the performance of their official duties or in activities relating to economic or political matters.The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at/1368-5201.htmWhat is corruption corrupting?45Journal of Money Laundering Control Vol.13No.1,2010pp.45-54q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1368-5201DOI 10.1108/13685201011010209Although Okogkule (2006,p.95)recognized that corruption is a universal phenomenon,he analyzed the Nigerian situation as implying an amoral perspective towards any corrupt practice.Okogbule (2004,p.70)presented corruption as a social construct.In other words,the perception of corruption can vary over time and place.Corruption is always detrimental to the collective well-being,said Okogbule (2006,p.95).Magnouloux (2006,pp.41-55)explained that corruption has a lot of economicconsequences:.On the allocation of resources (in goods and services as well as in human capital)..On the economic environment,and then on the way economic decision makers will analyze different courses of action..Corruption could reduce the pace and extent of economic activities.Magnouloux believed that there is a negative correlation between the level of corruption and the level of economic growth..Corruption negatively affects the level of trust between people so that in the long term,it endangers the stability of social and political institutions.However,few authors described very precisely the phenomenon of corruption,while keeping an operational definition of corruption.Aguilera and Vadera (2008)have succeeded in providing a typology of corruption that reflects the complexity and the various levels of corrupt practices around the world.However,their definition of organizational corruption remains quite dependent on Weber’s notion of authority.Aguilera and Vadera (2008,pp.433-4)defined “organizational corruption”as “the crime that is committed by the use of authority within organizations for personal gain”.Most of the time,organizational corruption is committed for personal gain,they believed.But there could be some cases where the corruption is committed also for the benefit of the organization itself.Aguilera and Vadera (2008)presented three types of organizational corruption:(1)Procedural corruption:[...]when employees at all or some levels of the organization do not follow or are not mandated to follow (ethical)procedures of business conduct,the corrupt outcome is defined as procedural corruption (p.441).(2)Schematic corruption:[...]if the organizational environment requires frequent bribery and pay-offs to politicians and bureaucrats for conducting daily business,corruption will become part of the modus operandi (p.442).(3)Categorical corruption:[...]suppose there is a large multinational corporation consisting of several subsidiaries that are highly diversified geographically.In the case of subsidiaries located in countries with an expectation that unethical or corrupt means will be used to survive,corruption is likely to be concentrated in only those particular subsidiaries.Therefore,one observes concentrated or categorical acts of corruption in such multinational corporations (p.443).Now,the philosophical viewpoint on corruption is rarely addressed,although there are many clear connections between the perspectives of some philosophers overJMLC 13,146corruption,on one hand,and the way we define corruption at the beginning of the twenty-first century,on the other hand.Zekos(2004)discussed many aspects of corruption in the context of globalization.We could gather those components of corruption in the following manner:.Corruption of principles.According to Zekos(2004,p.644),only the harmonization of ethical principles in business could contribute to stop the use of corruption methods.In other words,the corruption of principles could only be annihilated through the introduction of universal ethical principles..Corruption of moral behavior.Zekos(2004,p.641)mentioned the ethical dilemma business corporations have to deal with:either,business leaders as well as their employees are choosing the most profitable course of action,although it implies unethical behavior,or they conform themselves to their personal and organizational ethical norms.In both cases,there is a high risk that their choice could“drive their company out of business”.In thefirst case,because of the legal pursuits against the company;in the second case,because of the loss of its competitiveness on the globalized markets..Corruption of people.Zekos(2004,p.644)said that small-scale corruption will be very difficult to stop..Corruption of organizations.Zekos(2004,p.639)said that in business corporations,corruption creates more uncertainties about the expected level of profits,so that business leaders tend to undertake“loss-avoiding behaviours”which are either expensive,or inefficient,or both.Indeed,as rightly said Zekos (2004),corruption reduces competitiveness.Only those competitors who can pay large bribes can actually compete.The other potential competitors are automatically excluded from the market.Corruption is an anti-trust behaviour.Zekos(2004,p.641)added that corruption erodes public confidence in the market.Thefinal effect is that people no longer trust business leaders and, progressively,any other representative of social authority..Corruption of states.According to Zekos(2004,pp.639-41),in corrupt societies, government bureaucrats are only focusing on their growing economic power,so that their competence is no longer developed as it should be.He defined “transnational corruption”as the bribery of government officials by foreign businesses.He said that such corruption makes national economies less efficient.People are thus no longer trusting their political leaders and public servants. In this paper,we will analyze thosefive levels of corruption(corruption of principles, corruption of moral behavior,corruption of people,corruption of organizations,corruption of states)from a philosophical viewpoint.Thosefive levels of corruption constitute what we call the“architecture of corruption”.We will see to what extent philosophers from Plato to Rousseau have discussed the issue of corruption out of various perspectives.We will observe that many of their opinions about corruption are now reflected in the way we perceive the phenomenon of corruption in the globalized markets.Corruption of principles(“ontic/spiritual/axiological corruption”)The corruption of principles is expressed through a corruption of soul,a corruption of human nature,or a corruption of political principles.What is corruption corrupting?47First,the corruption of soul (“ontic corruption”).In his 114th Letter to Lucilius,Seneca (1954,pp.225-39)talked about the corruption of language throughout history.Sometimes,the language used during a given era is reproducing the collective and historical moral rules and values which were enhanced in those years.Corruption of “ways of life”is sometimes very well accepted in the society,particularly among the wealthiest.Seneca then criticized the way rich people welcome various human vices as different forms ofblessing.Seneca added that wrong ways of life (modes of living as modes of being)will be disastrous for a given soul which is not in a state of equilibrium.In other words,a weak soul will be much more hurt by wrong ways of life than a strong spirit.Seneca believed that we should focus our attention on our soul rather than our way of life.Healing our soul will make possible for us to get rid of wrong ways of life.Healing our soul implies to conform ourselves to basic virtues and thus to get rid of any vice we could have.Second,the corruption of human nature (“spiritual corruption”).Plato (1967,p.342)said that evil is what corrupts and destroys,while good is what benefits and preserves.Aristotle (1943,pp.58-9)used the term “corruption”when he discussed a given state of things or bodies.In “corrupted natures”,he said,it seems that the body is often ruling over the soul.According to Aristotle,it is possible because such beings are put in an evil and because there are unnatural conditions.Aristotle (1951,pp.35-6)said that generation is a corruption of non-being,while corruption is a generation of non-being.A given thing is corrupted when it is transformed in non-being.The term “corruption”is then used in order to explain change in living and sensitive beings.Corruption is only possible for beings which could “not-to-be”.Generation,as well as corruption,is only available to those beings which are able to be and not to be (Aristotle,1951,p.135).According to Augustine (1964,p.134),what is subjected to corruption can never be good.Only God is incorruptible:Every nature that can become less good is good,and every nature becomes less good when it is corrupted.For either corruption does it no harm,in which case it is not being corrupted,or else it is indeed corrupted,in which case the corruption does in fact harm it.And if corruption harms it,it diminishes its goodness to some extent and thus makes it less good.If corruption leaves it bereft of any good at all,then whatever is left cannot be corrupted.For corruption can inflict no further harm,since there is no goodness left for it to take away.But if corruption cannot harm a nature,that nature cannot be corrupted,and if a nature cannot be corrupted,it is incorruptible.This leads to the absurd conclusion that a nature becomes incorruptible by undergoing corruption.Therefore,we must say that every nature is good insofar as it is a nature.For every nature is either corruptible or incorruptible.If it is an incorruptible nature,it is better than a corruptible nature;and if it is a corruptible nature,it is undoubtedly good,since corruption makes it less good.Therefore,every nature is good (Augustine,1993,p.96).Pascal (1962,p.221)said that the nature of human beings is corrupted from God,because of the Fall.Fall is then symbolizing that human being has lost God’s presence.Owing to the Fall,human beings have a corrupted nature,that is,an imperfect nature which is the direct consequence of God’s absence.Fall then represents the universal corruption of humanity (Pascal,1962,p.324).Third,the corruption of political principles (“axiological corruption”).According to Montesquieu (1970,pp.116-117),when the principles are corrupted,honour is lost.Even the moral quality of citizens is decreasing,so that the political system is entering into a phase of progressive self-destruction.Most of the time,the corruption of a given state was preceded by the corruption of political principles.Those principles areJMLC 13,148presented as principles of government.Indeed,they reflected basic values such as equality,mutual respect,and social justice.That is why we could call that phenomenon the“axiological corruption”:.The principle of democracy.Such principle is corrupted when we loss the spirit of equality between all human beings,but also when followers claim the same privileges that their leaders actually hold..The principle of aristocracy.It is corrupted when the power of nobility becomes arbitrary..The principle of monarchy.It is corrupted when monarchs loose the respect of their people,or when they become much less concerned by social justice than by their own political power.The principle of monarchy is also corrupted when people no longer feel their imputability towards their nation(loss of patriotism)..The principle of a despotic government.That principle is continuously corrupted since it is corrupted by its own nature.According to Montesquieu,when the principles of government are corrupted,even the best laws become the worst ones.Such laws are negating the integrity of the state,so that the state itself is subjected to corruption(Montesquieu,1970,pp.133-48).Finally,the corruption of principles,as it is expressed through a corruption of the soul, a corruption of human nature,or a corruption of political principles.It remains the basis for any further corrupt behavior,whether it is in business or in public administration.The origin of any act of corruption is the fact that some basic principles have become corrupt.Corruption of moral behavior(“moral corruption”)Moral corruption includes the corruption of practices and customs.The corruption of morality is basically due to the corruption of the reason and the perversion of the heart. It is also expressed in the various forms of perverted government.The corruption of the reason creates unethical parameters,so that any unethical behavior is then perceived as quite normal or unavoidable.Pascal(1962,p.280)made a basic link between the corruption of the reason and various unethical behaviors. Such illicit conducts actually follow from the corruption of the reason.Aristotle applied the notion of perversion to human passions.He then described the“perversion of the heart”.Aristotle(1943,p.160)used the term in order to reveal the situation where we are the slave of our own emotions or passions,such as angry,hatred or jealousy. In such situation,said Aristotle,our judgment becomes“perverted”.Aristotle(1943, p.163)argued that passion actually perverts the mind of rulers,although they were the best of men.Spinoza(1954,pp.302-330),as well as Aristotle,was focusing on a“free human being”,that is,a human being who is not the slave of any of his/her passions.Plato(1967,p.317)rightly asked the following question:[...]can it profit a man to take money unjustly,if he is thereby ensalving the best part of his nature to the vilest?No amount of money could make it worth his while to sell a son or daughter as slaves into the hands of cruel and evil men;and when it is a matter of ruthlessly subjugating all that is most godlike in himself to whatsoever is most ungodly and despictable,is not the wretch taking a bribe far more disastrous than the necklace Eriphyle took as the price of her husband’s life?What is corruption corrupting?49From the corruption of the reason and the perversion of the heart follows the corruption of morality.Rousseau (1977,p.15)said that belief in God actually makes society more peaceful and morals less corrupted.Moreover,he suggested that the progress of arts and sciences had corrupted social and personal morality (Rousseau,1977,p.24).Machiavelli (1985,p.119)believed that even well educated persons could be corrupted and could practice different forms of vice.Finally,when morality is corrupt,government is perverted.Aristotle (1943,pp.138-9)used the term “perversion”to reflect given forms of government in which community is no longer a society of free persons.Those forms of government which are focusing on the interests of the ruler and/or his friends and relatives (or any other specific social group)are perverted forms of government.Aristotle called them “despotic forms of government”.Perverted forms of government have unjust laws,he said (Aristotle,1943,p.149).Corruption of people (“social corruption”)The corruption of people is manifested in a threefold manner:either through crimes,or through greed,or even through the “love of power”.First,the arising of criminal conducts.Plato (1967,p.46)said that the highest form of injustice is actualized “when we seem just while we are not”.There should never be any case where someone has apparently pure or virtuous reputation,while committing the worst crimes.When most of people are law-abiding in a given country,there could be a small number of people who commit low-scale crimes,such as thieves,pickpockets and kidnappers.Such crimes,said Plato (1967,p.300),are not a very important matter until the number of criminals remains quite low.As soon as their number is growing,even small-scale crimes become a deep social concern,believed Plato.Aristotle (1943,p.143)strongly asserted that any state is established in order to prevent crimes and to favour social and economic exchanges.He said that rich people own many goods and advantages,so that they have high propensity to protect them by all means,including crimes (Aristotle,1943,p.185).A good ruler is incorruptible,said Aristotle (1943,p.161).According to Montesquieu (1970,p.120),crimes destroy all virtues.However,when some individuals do not have an exemplary conduct,or when they neglect to accomplish their duties,or undertake some illicit actions,they actually represent “seeds of corruption”,so that virtues are continuously destroyed by their actions.Montesquieu seem to share Augustine’s (1993,p.68)viewpoint according to which virtues dwell incorruptibly in the common truth and wisdom.Hegel (1940,p.131)said that a crime is the first constraint exerted as violence by a free being who concretely hurts the existence of freedom.It is then a violation of law (Hegel,1940,p.135).Some actions are morally and universally wrong,so that those who undertake them actually know (or must know)that what they are doing is morally wrong and universally considered as illicit.Such actions are indeed violating inner principles or external conducts of piety or justice (Hegel,1940,p.180).Second,greed.Rousseau believed that luxury corrupts both rich and poor:rich are corrupted by possession,while the poor are corrupted by covetousness (Rousseau,1977,p.217).Very often in Asian countries,bribery is linked to a “gift-giving ethos”,so that bribery is not really perceived as a wrong,unethical behavior.Bribes are then no longer a phenomenon of corruption,but rather the way friendship and social harmony are developed.According to Tian (2008,p.443),it is particularly the case in China:JMLC 13,150The lines between gifts and bribes are often blurred.It has been argued that gift giving is not to blame because it is only part of a big picture of Guanxi[“belonging to a network of relationships”]in China.In Chinese culture,gift giving is a natural dynamic of any relationship:it shows that a relationship is valued and is a means of expressing respect and honor for the other person.Chinese are very socially and situationally dependent and this may result in their special way of gift giving.As social principle,reciprocity consists of permanent relations of interdependence between persons,families,and clans.These relationships are binding and[if formed between families or clans]potentially eternal.Reciprocity is often described in terms of gift giving,and reciprocal relationships are ideally friendships comprised of exchanges of gifts and favors.This is mainly because Chinese consider that it follows that principle of Li,i.e.Confucian ritual action.Montesquieu(1970,p.51)said that people could be corrupted when they are too strongly attached to money and material goods.They are then no longer deeply involved in their business or profession.They have even very few social or political concerns.Money has become the origin of their meaning of life.Finally,social corruption can be observed in the way people focused on the power they actually hold.Strauss(1954,p.148)believed that the exercise of power actually corrupt some individuals,while it can improve the personality of some others. According to Rousseau(1977,p.26),the problem is that power is on one side,and knowledge/understanding on the other.In other words,princes(political authorities) hold power and do not deepen their knowledge and understanding of reality.Learned people do not have any political or social power.As long as that situation remains the same,people will continue to be“mean,corrupt and miserable”,he said.The problem is that in the long-run,the corruption of people will progressively extend to the government(Rousseau,1977,p.128).Corruption of organizations(“institutional corruption”)When people are corrupted,even the best social institutions can no longer be socially useful,said Machiavelli(1985,p.78).Bentham(1962)was quite prophetic when he talked about the minimum wages public servants should receive,given that they are submitted to various temptations of corruption.In many developing countries,we face that problem for more than50years now:In employments which expose the public functionary to peculiar temptations,the emoluments ought to be sufficient to preserve him from corruption.Setting aside all considerations of the happiness of the individual,the interest of the public requires,that in all employments which afford the means of illicit gain,the individuals employed should be placed above want.If this important consideration be neglected,we ought not to be surprised that men urged on by perpetually recurring wants should abuse the powers they possess.Under such circumstances,if they are found guilty of extortion or peculation,they are less deserving of blame than government which has spread the snare into which it was scarcely possible that their probity should not fall.Placed between the necessity of providing the means of subsistence,and the impossibility of providing them honestly,they will naturally be led to regard peculation and extortion as a lawful supplement,tacitly authorized by the government(p.244).A salary proportionate to the wants of the functionary operates as a kind of moral antiseptic,or preservative.It fortifies a man’s probity against the influence of sinister and seductive motives.The fear of losing it will in general be more than equivalent to the ordinary temptations held out by illicit gains(p.245).What is corruption corrupting?51A greater or less portion of this antiseptic must be employed,in proportion as there exists agreater or less proclivity towards corruption (p.245).Corruption of states (“national/societal/cultural corruption”)According to Machiavelli (1985,p.66),every ruler must keep religion,particularly religious rituals and ceremonies,as “pure”as possible.They must safeguard suchtraditions if they want to be free of any corruption.When a state is basically corrupted,rulers can no longer exert their own political freedom.No law can stop a universal corruption,since laws require the respect of basic moral rules and norms.And those rules and norms also require laws to be reinforced.So,if corruption has become a universal phenomenon,then social morality is implicitly justifying ws cannot stop corruption when social morality is universally justifying such phenomenon (Machiavelli,1985,p.78).When there is no honesty,we cannot expect any good to be actualized.Then,we should never expect any right action from corrupted states (Machiavelli,1985,p.138).In some states,corruption has made easier for any radical/extremist group to annihilate any freedom in the state and to set up a true tyranny (Machiavelli,1985,p.275).In such states,when corruption cannot be stopped by laws,Machiavelli recommended monarchy.Only a powerful King could exert an absolute power and then get rid of a corrupted nobility (Machiavelli,1985,p.140).We should remember Montesquieu (1970,p.61):when laws are not applied,the whole political system becomes corrupted,so that the state itself is lost.In that context,it is thus important to observe that political will and commitment constitute the final cause of any real social change.According to McCormick and Paterson (2006,p.191),the most important factor in any strategy against public corruption,at least when development and commercial banks are concerned,remains the political will and commitment.The authors are wondering about the real will of governments,IFIs and commercial banks,first to publicly recognize the scope of public corruption and money laundering and,second,to take collection action in order to reduce all kinds of damages following from that phenomenon.They particularly referred to reputational damages.ConclusionAccording to Okogbule (2004,p.74),the following phenomena are correlated to corruption:poverty,unemployment,greed,institutional weakness,inefficient and ineffective law enforcement,disrespect for the rule of law,lack or moral standards and codes.They are symptoms rather than causes of corruption.The real causes of corruption are grounded in socio-cultural practices as well as political and economic systems,said Okogbule.According to Okogbule (2004,p.84),the most important cause of corruption is the lack of political will to deal with corruption.The author looked at corruption as being a basic threat to the stability of societies and to the maintenance of the rule of law.Okogbule said that corruption actually reduces economic development in the long-run.But we should also remember that actual forms of corruption are basically grounded in prior phenomena of corruption,whether it is the corruption of principles,the corruption of moral behavior,the corruption of people,the corruption of organizations,or the corruption of states.In each case,philosophers have described the deep and broad effects of corruption.Their criticism is quite close to the way we presently circumscribe the social impact of corruption.We could then draw twoJMLC 13,152。
THE NORMALIZATION OF CORRUPTION IN ORGANIZATIONS

THE NORMALIZATION OF CORRUPTION IN ORGANIZATIONS Blake E.Ashforth and Vikas AnandABSTRACTOrganizational corruption imposes a steep cost on society,easily dwarfing that of street crime.We examine how corruption becomes normalized,that is, embedded in the organization such that it is more or less taken for granted and perpetuated.We argue that three mutually reinforcing processes underlie normalization:(1)institutionalization,where an initial corrupt decision or act becomes embedded in structures and processes and thereby routinized;(2) rationalization,where self-serving ideologies develop to justify and perhaps even valorize corruption;and(3)socialization,where na¨ıve newcomers are induced to view corruption as permissible if not desirable.The model helps ex-plain how otherwise morally upright individuals can routinely engage in cor-ruption without experiencing conflict,how corruption can persist despite the turnover of its initial practitioners,how seemingly rational organizations can engage in suicidal corruption and how an emphasis on the individual as evil-doer misses the point that systems and individuals are mutually reinforcing.I will never believe I have done anything criminally wrong.I did what is business.If I bentany rules,who doesn’t?If you are going to punish me,sweep away the system.If I am guilty, there are many others who should be by my side in the dock(on trial).–an architect,convicted of corrupt practices(Chibnall&Saunders,1977,p.142). Research in Organizational BehaviorResearch in Organizational Behavior,Volume25,1–52Copyright©2003by Elsevier Ltd.All rights of reproduction in any form reservedISSN:0191-3085/doi:10.1016/S0191-3085(03)25001-212BLAKE E.ASHFORTH AND VIKAS ANANDINTRODUCTIONWhat comes to mind when you think about criminals and crime?Odds are that you picture a burglar breaking into a home,a pusher dealing drugs,or some related image.Odds are,in short,that you picture a lone individual engaged in street crime(Collins,1998;Ermann&Lundman,1996).In fact,Clinard(1979, p.16)concluded that“Far more persons are killed through corporate criminal activities than by individual criminal homicides,”and the U.S.Department of Justice estimates that the economic costs of corporate crime are seven to25 times greater than that of street crime(Donziger,1996).As Darley(1996,p.13) argues,“the typical evil action is inflicted...by individuals acting within an organizational context”rather than by“evil actors carrying out solitary actions.”Moreover,Edwin Sutherland(1949),who coined the term white collar crime and pioneered early research,argued that corporate misdeeds tear the social fabric more so than street crime because they corrode trust in authorities and institutions. An even more troubling trend in white-collar crime is that these crimes appear increasingly to be perpetrated through the actions of numerous employees in the organization as opposed to being the actions of a single misguided individual.A glance at today’s headlines illustrates the point.Enron’s senior executives are accused of hiding the company’s precariousfinancial position while cashing out their stocks and shredding incriminating documents(Eichenwald&Henriques, 2002),U.S.Catholic Church officials admit that several key administrators systematically covered up the predatory behaviors of pedophile priests(Miller &France,2002)and Merrill Lynch agreed to pay the State of New York$100 million to settle accusations that its employees gave its investors misleading and over-optimistic research reports about the stock of its investment banking clients (Gasparino&Smith,2002).In this paper,we develop a model that explains how corruption becomes normalized in an organization.We define corrupt acts as the misuse of authority for personal,subunit and/or organizational gain(cf.Sherman,1980).Because we will argue that corruption often becomes institutionalized in organizations,it is important to note that“misuse”refers to societal norms.We focus on relatively severe or“morally intense”(Jones,1991)forms of corruption(e.g.self-dealing versus sleeping on the job)because these are more difficult to normalize.We in-clude corruption on behalf of the organization(e.g.price-fixing,bribing outsiders to win contracts)and against the organization(e.g.theft,nepotism)(Coleman, 1987),often referred to as corporate/organizational crime and occupational crime, respectively(Clinard&Quinney,1973).Our model examines collective corruption(Brief,Buttram&Dukerich,2001)–acts that require cooperation among two or more individuals.Our analysis isThe Normalization of Corruption in Organizations3 confined to the group level(throughout the paper,we use the term group to refer to a collective,such as a workgroup,department,or organization):we do not examine individual differences in susceptibility to corruption.Further,we focus largely on groups that are housed within an organization rather than distributed across organizations(as in,for example,bid rigging).Additionally,our interest is not in the antecedents of corrupt acts–the primary focus of much previous research(e.g.Baucus,1994;Brass,Butterfield&Skaggs,1998)–but in how such acts become normalized,that is,become embedded in organizational structures and processes,internalized by organizational members as permissible and even desirable behavior,and passed on to successive generations of members(cf.Brief et al.,2001;Zucker,1977).We propose that there are three pillars that contribute to the normalization of corruption in an organization:(1)institutionalization,the process by which corrupt practices are enacted as a matter of routine,often without conscious thought about their propriety;(2)rationalization,the process by which individuals who engage in corrupt acts use socially constructed accounts to legitimate the acts in their own eyes;and(3)socialization,the process by which newcomers are taught to perform and accept the corrupt practices.As shown in Fig.1,the three pillars are mutually reinforcing and reciprocally interdependent;once established in an organization,the pillars create a situation where corruption is practiced collectively by employees and may endure indefinitely.Our analysis suggests an answer to the intriguing question of how a person who is a loving parent,thoughtful neighbor and devout churchgoer is able to engage in workplace corruption.Thefirst three sections of the paper describe each of the pillars in detail.The fourth section focuses briefly on how institutionalization,rationalization and socialization interact to cement normalization.Finally,we discuss the implications of our model for research and practice.Fig.1.The Three Pillars of Normalization.4BLAKE E.ASHFORTH AND VIKAS ANAND INSTITUTIONALIZING CORRUPTION In1996,the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC)charged Mitsubishi Motors in the U.S.with creating conditions that led to over700women being sexually harassed over a period of several years.According to the EEOC charge,the women had been subjected to groping,sexual graffiti,abusive comments and having lewd photos pasted on their cars.The EEOC further charged that the harassment resulted from the tacit and explicit acts of numerous individuals at all levels in the organization.Additional investigations revealed that the United Auto Workers(UAW),an external agency that could and should have intervened,did not take strong action in response to the repeated complaints that it received from female workers.Further,Mitsubishi’s policies required that before any employee filed a complaint,she needed to engage in a lengthy procedure to settle the complaint with the accused individuals;a process that many of the aggrieved employees chose not to go through.Mitsubishi responded to these accusations by strongly refuting the EEOC allegations.They paid3,000workers a day’s wages to facilitate them picketing the EEOC offices and set up phone lines on the shopfloor to enable workers to call legislators to protest the EEOC’s actions.These responses further alienated public opinion and Mitsubishifinally settled the case for$34 million,making this the largest settlement in the legal history of sexual discrimination.This sum was in addition to the private settlements that were paid to individual employees who had sued the company(Elstrom&Updike,1996;Miller,1998;Sharpe,1996;Weimer&Thornton, 1997).Institutionalized organizational behaviors have been defined as stable,repetitive and enduring activities that are enacted by multiple organization members with-out significant thought about the propriety,utility,or nature of the behavior(cf. Greenwood&Hinings,1988;Oliver,1992;Zucker,1977,1988).In institution-alized corruption,the impetus for and apparatus of corruption are external to any one person:corruption is a property of the collective.As the Mitsubishi case illus-trates,institutionalized corrupt behaviors can pervade multiple subunits and levels in an organization.They can become an integral part of day-to-day activities to such an extent that individuals may be unable to see the inappropriateness of their behaviors.Gross(1978,p.56)argues that“all organizations are inherently criminogenic”–that is,prone to criminality(or at least corruption)–although not inevitably criminal.We view collective corruption as a slippery slope where initial,idiosyn-cratic corrupt practices become institutionalized over time.As shown in Fig.2, the institutionalization process appears to consist of three major phases:(1)the initial decision or act;(2)embedding corruption in structures and processes; and(3)routinizing corruption.It should be noted,however,that it is far from inevitable that idiosyncratic corruption will slide into collective corruption:later, under“Implications for Research and Practice,”we briefly consider means of reversing normalization.The Normalization of Corruption in Organizations5Fig.2.Institutionalizing Corruption.Phase1:The Initial Decision or ActMuch of the literature on organizational corruption has focused on the genesis of corruption(e.g.Baucus,1994;Brass et al.,1998;Cohen,1995;Coleman,1998; Finney&Lesieur,1982;Geis&Salinger,1998;Poveda,1994;Shover&Bryant, 1993;Szwajkowski,1985;Yeager,1986);thus,we will keep our overview brief. This literature argues that the motivation and opportunity to engage in corruption are the product of various environmental(e.g.strong competition,lax legal and regulatory enforcement),organizational(e.g.poor performance,structural complexity)and,to a far lesser extent,personal factors(e.g.cognitive moral development,fear of failing).An implicit assumption seems to be that corruption is usually the product of strong situations that override individual differences or that ordinary people populate the ranks of the corrupt;indeed,Coleman(1998, p.178)states that“Almost all the studies have agreed on one point:White-collar offenders are psychologically‘normal.’”In particular,many scholars have linked corruption to a permissive ethical cli-mate at the societal,industry,or organizational levels.Major organizational goals are often tied to resource procurement andfinancial success and a constellation of values extolled in business is conducive to an amoral and even immoral pursuit of those goals:free enterprise(minimal regulation),individualism,competitive achievement,profitability,efficiency,pragmatism and so on(e.g.Jackall,1988; Mills,1956).Brief et al.(2001)argue that belief in the sanctity of the corporation6BLAKE E.ASHFORTH AND VIKAS ANAND is so strong that managers tend to believe that by serving the corporation’s interests they are also serving the public’s interests:what’s good for Microsoft is good for the country.Thus,ethical issues often are not perceived or are subordinated to or reframed as economic,legal,public relations,or other kinds of“business”issues, leaving managers free to engage in amoral reasoning(Jones&Ryan,1998).For example,Brenner and Molander(1977,p.62)surveyed Harvard Business Re-view(HBR)readers and found that nearly half agreed that“the American business executive tends not to apply the great ethical laws immediately to work.He is preoccupied chiefly with gain.”According to the rational choice perspective in criminology(Cornish&Clarke, 1986),individuals are thought to engage in“an assessment,however crude or incomplete,of options and the potential risks and payoffs of each”(Shover& Bryant,1993,p.153),along with the skills,planning,time needed and so on. Given a permissive ethical climate,an emphasis onfinancial goals(with com-mensurate rewards for success),and an opportunity to act amorally or immorally, the ends may soon come to justify the means,leading to a decision to engage in corruption.Further,the leniency and low frequency of formal sanctioning by governments and professional associations often makes corruption economically rational(Braithwaite,1989;Leaf,2002):it appears that crime often does pay. Finally,as we argue later under“Rationalizing Corruption,”groups often provide self-serving accounts to neutralize the countervailing force of morals and ethics. To be sure,there are other routes to corruption besides amoral and immoral calculation,including principled disagreement with public policy and laws, managerial incompetence,and the unintended consequences of myriad actors and actions ricocheting within complex systems and contexts.However,we believe, following Vaughan(1992)and others,that amoral or immoral calculation is the most common route–in part because such a calculation is often necessary for a given act of corruption to continue and become institutionalized,regardless of its genesis.LeadershipLeadership plays a potentially huge role in the institutionalization process.Leaders not only control many of the levers of institutionalization,but are very potent role models for organizational members.Baumhart(1961)and Brenner and Molander (1977)asked HBR readers to rankfive factors according to their influence on unethical decisions(the1977survey included a sixth factor,“society’s moral climate,”which rankedfifth).In both surveys,the“behavior of superiors”was ranked as the most influential factor,followed by a cluster of factors–“formal policy or lack thereof,”“industry ethical climate,”and“behavior of one’s equals in the company”;tellingly,“one’s personalfinancial needs”came last.The Normalization of Corruption in Organizations7 Leaders do not have to actually engage in corruption to serve as role models: rewarding,condoning,ignoring,or otherwise facilitating corruption–whether intentionally or not,or explicitly or not–often sends a clear signal to employees (Baucus,1994;Ermann&Lundman,1996).Brief et al.(2001)argue that an emphasis on ends rather than means,supported by high standards and strong rewards(punishments)for attaining(not attaining)them,creates a permissive ethical climate.For example,Sims and Brinkmann(2002)discuss the role of CEO John Gutfreund in helping to foster an unethical climate at Salomon Brothers. Gutfreund focused on and rewarded short-term results,modeled aggressive and Machiavellian behavior,failed to punish employees who broke laws in the pursuit of those results,lied about and covered up ethical and legal lapses, promoted like-minded employees,andfired others capriciously,encouraging conformity.In addition to serving as role models,leaders–as the legitimate agents of the organization–authorize corruption(Kelman,1973;cf.displacement of responsibility,Bandura,1999;sanctioning,Brief et al.,2001).As with role modeling,authorizing need not be formal and explicit:a manager who informally encourages or tacitly condones corruption can also be said to be authorizing it.The subordinate,as a designated role occupant,is expected to execute the authorized acts,not to second-guess them:the normative duty to obey is expected to trump personal preferences,particularly in rigidly hierarchical organizations(Hamilton &Sanders,1992).As illustrated by Milgram’s(1974)obedience experiments,the reflexive impulse to obey authorityfigures–the“habit of obedience”(Hamilton& Sanders,1992,p.72)–is so strong and pervasive that most people have a difficult time actively defying orders they do not condone.In any event,because the individuals who perform the corrupt acts“are not the actual agent of their actions, they are spared self-condemning reactions”(Bandura,1999,p.196).Further,the relative powerlessness often associated with subordination may induce individuals to abdicate responsibility for moral issues:“‘Let the people making the high salaries tackle the difficult ethical decisions’seems to be a widely held view among occupants of lower echelon corporate positions”(Jones&Ryan,1998,p.440). Twofinal notes regarding leadership and corruption are in order.First,the situ-ational power of office may be complemented(or even supplanted)by the personal power of charisma.The more charismatic the authorityfigure(s),the greater the identification,trust and reflexive obedience that he or she is likely to engender among subordinates(Conger&Kanungo,1998).Charisma speaks to a quality of the person,not the mission,and a charismatic leader can use the allegiance of others for benign ends or corrupt ends(Howell,1988).The cult of personality that arose around Michael Milken enabled him to assemble a force of like-minded disciples at Drexel Burnham Lambert(Stone,1990).8BLAKE E.ASHFORTH AND VIKAS ANANDSecond,organizational structures and processes are often contrived to insulate senior managers from blame,thereby further encouraging corruption.For example,a focus on performance goals rather than on means or the use of verbal and general(i.e.ambiguous)orders regarding means,coupled with minimal oversight and documentation,afford the managers“strategic ignorance”(Katz, 1979,p.297)and therefore“plausible deniability”(Braithwaite,1989;Browning, 1989,p.1).Baker and Faulkner(1993)found that top executives involved in two decentralized pricefixing networks were less likely to be found guilty than top executives in a centralized pricefixing network,and Braithwaite(1984)reports that pharmaceuticalfirms instituted a“vice-president responsible for going to jail,”namely,the only executive who needed to know about corrupt activities.Similarly, isolating subunits allows senior managers to be“willfully blind”(Braithwaite, 1989,p.351)to corrupt practices(e.g.the independent cells of the Mafia).Thus,the managers can claim that they neither knew of nor approved the corrupt action. Phase2:Embedding Corruption in Organizational Structures and ProcessesOrganizational memory is the metaphor used to describe the process through which an organization acquires,stores and uses the knowledge that is applied to its activities(Anand,Manz&Glick,1998).In its quest for efficiency,an organization tends to commit a promising activity to its memory(and thus institutionalize it)when it has been performed repetitively in the immediate past(Yates,1990). Activities stored in organizational memories are often performed through the execution of a series of inter-related routines.The outputs of one routine trigger the initiation of the next routine in the sequence.Thus,entire activities can be performed without any one individual knowing them in their entirety(Levitt& March,1988;Nelson&Winter,1982;Weick&Roberts,1993).Once a corrupt decision or act produces a positive outcome and is included in organizational memory,it is likely to be used again in the future.When similar issues confront other managers,and if solutions are not readily obvious,answers are sought from the memory because:(1)past decisions and acts are assumed to have been made for rational reasons;and(2)following a precedent helps legitimate the decision and act(Henisz&Delios,2001;Ocasio,1999;Simon, 1976).For instance,Ermann and Lundman(1996,pp.23–24)describe how Gulf Oil laundered and distributed corporate funds illegally to American politicians: After the comptroller who helped develop the system left,three other people sequentially occupied his position.None of them had to make any difficult decisions,much less consciously involve themselves in criminal activities.They merely were told that they would receive requests for money...Easy to do and easy to live with.The Normalization of Corruption in Organizations9 The use of previous unethical decisions is especially significant because individ-uals often do not consider the contextual issues(including ethics)surrounding the decision or act;the past success of such practices is assumed to validate the process through which it was determined(ler,1993).And if the renewed corrupt practice results in a positive outcome an even stronger precedent is set for the future. The organization comes to expect and then depend on the payoffs from corruption. In time,goals,budgets,informationflows,rewards and punishments and so on may be skewed to support the practices.Eichenwald(2000),for instance,discusses the bureaucratic machinery and processes that evolved to support price-fixing by Archer Daniels Midland and its competitors.The result is institutionalized corrup-tion:personal behaviors become impersonal norms,emergent practices become tacit understandings and idiosyncratic acts become shared procedures.Moreover, the increasingly casual practice of corruption tends to further degrade the ethical climate of the organization.In short,micro and macro practices are mutually reinforcing,encouraging further corruption(Cialdini,1996;Vaughan,1992). CultureAs the repertoire of corrupt practices becomes embedded in the ongoing routines of the organization,a deviant culture(or subculture,in the case of localized corruption)tends to emerge to normalize the corruption.Assumptions,values and beliefs,perhaps drawing on the business values noted above,evolve to rationalize the corrupt practices in ways that neutralize the stigma of corruption.(Later, under“Rationalizing Corruption,”we discuss the types of accounts through which this is accomplished.)Indeed,the culture may come to valorize the corruption and promulgate recipes for corruption.For instance,Kappeler,Sluder and Alpert (1994)describe subcultural norms that support police corruption:don’t give up another cop;if you get caught,don’t implicate anybody else;don’t get involved in another cop’s affairs;don’t trust new cops until they’ve been checked out;and don’t tell anybody more than they need to know.Deviant(sub)cultures insulate actors from the wider culture with its counter-vailing norms and beliefs.Indeed,Hollinger and Clark(1983,p.126)concluded from their study of employee theft that“employee deviance is more constrained by informal social controls present in primary work-group relationships than by the more-formal reactions to deviance by those in positions of authority within the formal organization.”Accordingly,a premium is placed on socializing with insiders and on secrecy and obfuscation regarding outsiders(as well as condemning any condemners;Sykes&Matza,1957).Strong(sub)cultures are more likely to emerge where there is high within-group task interdependence and low between-group interdependence,accountability for performance goals but not means,group-based versus individual-based rewards,member stability10BLAKE E.ASHFORTH AND VIKAS ANAND and cohesion,peer-based socialization,and physical proximity(e.g.Trice& Beyer,1993).How can a group hold a worldview so at odds with the wider culture and not appear to be greatly conflicted by it?The answer may lie in the distinction between particularism and universalism.An individual develops social identities specific to the social domains,groups and roles–and accompanying subcultures –that he or she occupies(e.g.manager,mother,parishioner,sports fan).Given the diversity of social domains,groups and roles one typically occupies,one’s social identities tend to be correspondingly quite diverse.In order not to compromise the utility of identities tailored to particular contexts,individuals often cognitively compartmentalize their identities(Ashforth&Mael,1989;Settles,Sellers& Damas,2002).In a real sense,then,to change social domains,groups and roles is to change selves.Derry(1987),for instance,argues that because managers value efficiency and effectiveness,they may use different moral yardsticks at work than at home.The double standard is locally adaptive even as it’s morally repugnant from a more generalized perspective.1Thus,an individual typically responds to the press of a given context by invoking the localized social identity and culture. As a result,actions tend to be particularistic rather than universalistic;that is,they tend to be tailored to local demands and favor local actors who share one’s group membership,identity and culture.In the case of corruption,this myopia means that an otherwise ethically-minded individual may forsake universalistic or dominant norms about ethical behavior in favor of particularistic behaviors that favor his or her group at the expense of outsiders(Aubert,1952;cf.ethnocentrism,LeVine&Campbell,1972;Ryan& Bogart,1997).Indeed,if a social identity is chronically more important to the individual,particularism can metastasize into what Banfield(1958)calls“amoral familism,”that is,a tendency to display morality only with regard to one’s“family”(ingroup).This tendency to always put the ingroup above all others clearly paves the way for collective corruption.Extreme examples include the Mafia and street gangs:members of these groups tend not to see themselves as corrupt but as faithfully serving themselves,their ingroup and perhaps their neighborhood;the wider society exists as a counterpoint to be exploited(e.g.Jankowski,1991).In sum,because life is lived in concrete settings,localized social identities and cultures tend to be highly salient.Thus,the individual may bend his or her general commitment to ethics under the press of local circumstances.As Bandura(1999, p.206)put it,“Most everyone is virtuous at the abstract level.”Beyond the OrganizationCorrupt practices within an organization may be disseminated throughout the industry via both micro(e.g.individual mobility)and macro(e.g.imitation)The Normalization of Corruption in Organizations11 processes(Darley,1996;Vaughan,1983;Zucker,1988)and given impetus by competitive pressure.Industry level corruption is more likely in mature indus-tries,where time and stability facilitate dissemination(Baucus,1994).Examples abound:Clinard and Yeager(1980)concluded that corporate crime among Fortune 500companies is most prevalent in the oil,automobile and pharmaceutical indus-tries;Pizzo,Fricker and Muolo(1991)document how a network of individuals spread knowledge of fraudulent techniques throughout the U.S.savings and loan industry;more recently,the U.S.utility industry was accused of indulging in round trip sales(where afirm sells electricity to a dummyfirm and buys the same amount of electricity back)to artificially boost revenues(Berman,Angwin&Cummins, 2002).Brenner and Molander(1977,p.60)asked HBR readers,“In every industry there are some generally accepted business practices.In your industry,are there practices which you regard as unethical?”Excluding the“don’t know”responses, two-thirds agreed.Often,an important factor in industry wide corruption is that governing bodies that are responsible for,or have the capacity to monitor,industry behavior may themselves become part of the institutionalized system of corruption(Braithwaite, 1989;Sherman,1980).As in the example of the UAW’s role in the Mitsubishi case described earlier,or as in the case of Arthur Andersen vis-`a-vis Enron and Salomon Smith Barney’s telecom analysts vis-`a-vis Global Crossing(Creswell &Prins,2002),outside agencies may become co-opted by organizations and develop tacit agreements to turn a blind eye–particularly if the individuals anticipate or have been through the“revolving door”to employment in the industry.2Phase3:RoutinizingAs corrupt practices become institutionalized and repeatedly enacted,they become routinized and habitual.Kelman(1973,p.46)defines routinizing as“transforming the action into routine,mechanical,highly programmed operations.”Routinizing neutralizes the salience of corruption in four ways.First,by embedding corruption in ongoing processes,routinizing removes discrete(strategic)decision points that might trigger reflective thought and creates a momentum that sustains action without the necessity for thought(Kelman,1973;Staw,1980;cf.ritualism, Ashforth&Kreiner,2002).As an antitrust violator put it,“It was a way of doing business before we even got into the business.So it was like why do you brush your teeth in the morning or something...It was part of the everyday”(Benson, 1985,p.591).Once corruption is ongoing,it takes more conscious effort to dis continue it than to continue it.。
The Corruption Trap

The Corruption TrapEmerging markets are where money is to be made: pent up consumer demand, cheap labour, few regulations. But just under the surface lies the murky world of corruption, ready to derail even the most scrupulous businessperson. Now what?By Angela Garvey Hammond“Moscow, it's a web of illogical bureaucracy, which can best be described as a moving target. Once you get a handle on the processes involved, someone in the administration gets fired, the rules change, and you start again. We found ourselves often being forced to take two steps back because of this. However, you persevere, and you launch,” so says Alex Shrifin, a Canadian entrepreneur selling soup on the streets of Moscow. He came up with the canny idea of selling soup on-the-go three years ago and, with a small team of investors, eventually managed to open his first street kiosk in April last year. He knows Moscow well and the Russian way of doing business, as he describes it “the trickle-down effect of corruption”.“Deep infrastructural corruption tends to affect larger operations than ours. Corruption leads to massive inefficiencies, lack of vision on the part of regulators, and a general state of cynicism. While we've had to deal with the occasional corrupt small official, the biggest problem is that there is truly little in the way of helping small business get off the ground and survive.”Alex is shrewd. He can see the opportunities in Russia but he is under no illusions about the risks. The anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International rates Russia as one of the most corrupt countries in the world - giving it a score of 2.1 out of 10. At the other end of the ‘corruption scale” is Alex’s home country Canada with a score of 8.9 - one of the cleanest nations.It’s not o nly RussiaOf course Russia is not the only country tainted by the practice. Travel around the world and China and India are on a par with the former Soviet state.So what makes one country clean and honest and another not? If one looks at the various definitions of corruption and bribery the general consensus is the abuse of public or official power for personal gain. But it is a two-way process.For every corrupt official demanding a bribe, there is a business or investorready to pay it to get things done his way. Many argue it’s this “supply chain” of individuals and companies wi th their huge slush funds that is exacerbating the problem.Then there is the West which can hardly claim to be squeaky clean.N. Craig Smith, INSEADChaired Professor of Ethics and Social Responsibility, highlights the case of Siemens. For years the German industrial and engineering giant paid bribes to foreign officials – a practice which was not illegal under German law and was considered a necessary cost of doing business abroad.“The company, in a sense, continued with a practice that had been in place for many years but didn’t realise the ramifications of the introduction of the OECD convention against bribery and the laws put in place that governed it as a German company. Historically it was tax deductible - the cost of bribing a foreign government official.”As a result of the OECD legislation, in 2008 Siemens had to pay a hefty penalty of up to 5 billion euros. The scandal damaged its reputation and business and 50 of its top executives were sacked. Siemens has cleaned up its act and learned its lesson. Russia is making moves in the same direction. The country is taking steps to bec ome a member of the OECD’s anti-bribery Convention. The treaty demands signator y countries to address the “supply side”of corruption in international business dealings by banning the practice of foreign companies lining the pockets of local government officials. Participating countries are regularly screened by fellow nations and have to account for any lapses in their anti-bribery legislation and implementation. Such goals and agreements are commendable but with Russia’s track record are they really achievable?Can corruption be contained?INSEAD’s Professor Douglas Webber has his doubts. An expert in political science he predicts “two factors will make it very hard for this kind of agreement to bite in Russia. One is the Russian economy’s heavy dependence on natural resources and particularly oil and gas, where state plays a dominant role, and the other is the generally central role of state intervention in the Russian economy.”Bribery, kick-backs, grafts, back-handers whatever way you phrase it - the practice is ancient and embedded in almost every society and culture. As I was investigating this issue I met, by chance, an Indian philosophy lecturer teaching at a British University. He was very proud and insightful about India. Within seconds of our conversation he had listed a string of personal incidents from the flight home to customs and jumping the airport queues which automatically required an unofficial payment.Add up all these “unofficial payments” and corruption is having a crippling effect on the country. Global Financial Integrity, a task forcewhich aims to curtail the cross border flow of illegal money estimates that more than 16 billion US dollars in illicit money leaves India every year. Ordinary Indian households may not be aware of the exact figures but know all too well what is going on. A string of major corruption scandals in the telecoms sector and the alleged fraud surrounding the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year has outraged thousands particularly those who have benefitted from India’s economic boom. They have turned their frustrations into support for the anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare who is pushing for a new anti-corruption ombudsman with the right to investigate every level of society and government.Some positive signsThe movement is being closely followed by members of India’s highly-skilled business community working abroad like BhavinDalal. He is an IT specialist with a very successful career in North America. He left India as a young professional in his early twenties. Now in his late 30s he can see huge changes in his home country.“Corruption has been prevalen t in India even before its indepen dence from the British. That’s for socio-economic reasons as well as cultural ones - under the pretext of religion, patriotism or "the greater good." Between the time I grew up in India and went on to start my early professional life, until today, a lot has changed. The literacy rate has grown immensely and is at about 75 percent today, a far cry from less than 30 percent when I was growing up. While corruption is visible, there is a part of the society which openly rejects it.”Professor N. Craig Smith points to other glimmers of hope; Tata, the Indian conglomerate whose chairman, Ratan N. Tata, has admitted to losing out on big contracts because he refused to slip the right person “a graft”. In spite of that Tata is still a vast and highly profitable business.“There are companies who are successful in taking a stance against bribery. In India Tata has been able to build a reputation for itself for not paying. It took a non-corruption stance at some considerable cost.”Calculating the exact cost of corruption to the global economy is impossible because, by its very nature, the illicit flows of money are well hidden and involve a complex web at all levels of society.Journalist MishaGlennyhas spent years investigating the darker side of societies around the world and the underground global economy after 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. He points to the surge in a whole new area of employment; the “protection services to new businessmen”. Then there is the emergence of a “huge legal grey area as to what is licit business and what is illic i t business” which has opened up in Eastern Europe and the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China following their breakneck economic transition. “The fact that China and East Asia counterfeit huge amounts of goods whose intellectual property rights reside primarily in the United States, Western Europe and Japan…is a big big issue between the major forces of the global economy.”For his latest book,McMafia, he spoke to lawyers, criminals, gangsters, police officers, businesses, government officials, and journalists around the world and suggests “it’s impossible to extract co rruption from the activity of organised crime. Corruption is a vast industry....I also have to include a large part of what goes on in the offshore banking sector because despite the almost divine deference given to the offshore banking sector by the licit world, governments have to understand that this is a carte blanche for money launderers and for people seeking to get money out of the black economy and into the white economy”.There is no shortage of international institutions and government organisations trying to tackle this labyrinth but success is a long way off. Reading the findings of the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer does not offer much cheer either.Corruption has increased over the last three years, say six out of 10 people around the world.One in four people report paying bribes in the last year. The Barometer captures the experiencesand views of more than 91,000 people in 86 countries and territories. Views on corruption weremost negative in Western Europe and North America, where more than two-thirds of peoplethought corruption had increased over the last three years.Corruption and humanitarian aidThe global banking crisis gets part of the blame, while news headlines detail the corruptionendemic in so many humanitarian aid missions to disaster zones. INSEAD’s Professor ofOperations Management, Luk Van Wassenhove, has investigated why corruption plagues somany missions.“There are essentially three sources of corruption depending on your definition. The first andweakest one is because of lack of truly professional systems, people, and processes. For instance,poor purchasing procedures could lead to high expenses and therefore waste of money thatcould have been used to buy more goods. Or, allowing truck drivers to steal fuel for personal useinstead of paying and controlling them properly. A second source of corruption is food beingstolen in conflict areas and ending up on local markets. This is sometimes very hard to avoid. For instance, we know that food aid to Somalia is partially going to end up with the militia and serveto buy more weapons. But is this a reason not to send food to the starving people? A thirdsource is with service providers like chartered airplanes. It is possible that a plane delivering foodaid comes back with a load of arms or drugs. Again, better controls can help. Humanitarianswork in extremely difficult conditions sometimes. They are not corrupt but can be subject tocorruption forces. We should support them fully.”Risk consultancy groups who specialise in offering companies advice when operating in high risk regions of the world all have list of recommendations on how to avoid the bribery trap. Many of the steps they suggest are simple and obvious but clearly needed. Whether companies or individuals actually follow them is ultimately down to individual’s own integrity and perception of what constitutes an abuse of power and what doesn’t.Can Ethics Be Taught?It’s a question that is debated time and time again at business management schools around the globe. Ethics and social responsibility are crucial components to many leadership and management programmes. Some schools have their fireside chats; others, visiting lectures from former white collar criminals. INSEAD Professor N. Craig Smith says his job is not to teach students to be ethical business leaders but rather to encourage them “to think about the ethical issues they will face in their business lives to better understand what the various consequences might be and their obligations. At the end of the day it is their judgement which will determine what they do”.That may well raise a wry smile in many business circles but others like BhavanDalal are more sanguine. “I am an optimist. The last few years have resonated a fair possibility of change in India. I realise that it won't be quick but considering how long bribery has prevailed, the rate of change is fast.”ENDS。
经济学人9月精选

最后一项因素,令人民信任的总统大选和国会改选的发生条件尚不存在。因此,国会和总统大选的投票日期很可能因准备不及和行政问题而推迟,包括缺乏资金和选民登记不完整。推迟过久可能引起社会动乱,例如催化更具实力的工会走上街道要求回归宪政统治。社会动乱亦可能因恶化的经济气候而升高,国家民主暨发展委员会最后可能要动用武力对付。
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IZA Discussion Paper No. 8094 Aprruption Promote Emigration? An Empirical Examination
This paper empirically investigates the relationship between corruption and the emigration of those with high, medium and low levels of educational attainment. The empirical results indicate that as corruption increases the emigration rate of those with high levels of educational attainment also increases. The emigration rate of those with middle and low levels of educational attainment, however, increases at initial levels of corruption and then decreases beyond a certain point. Splitting the sample by income inequality suggests that increased inequality reduces the ability to emigrate. The policy conclusion is, that government actions should focus on controlling corruption, which in turn would lead to funds being channeled more productively into education and also lead to a fall in inequality which would reduce emigration.
2
1. Introduction Neo-classical migration theory views emigrants as individual, rational players who decide to move on the basis of a cost-benefit calculation. This theory perceives migration as leading to an optimal allocation of resources through which wages are equalised across countries due to the movement of labour, from surplus to scarce countries. Structuralists critique the neoclassical theory stating that individuals do not have a free choice to move as they are fundamentally constrained by structural forces or alternatively, are forced to move due to economic and political reasons (de Haas 2007). Dependency theorists argue that migration is not necessarily an overall beneficial process as it leads to an extraction of labour from the periphery to core deepening the vicious cycle of poverty in the periphery and accelerating growth of the core. There are however, a number of push and pull forces brought about by demographic change, globalization, political conflict, institutions and climate change that have increased migration pressures both within and across borders (de Haas, 2007) 1 .
Corresponding author: Friedrich Schneider Department of Economics Johannes Kepler University of Linz Altenbergerstrasse 69 4040 Linz Austria E-mail: friedrich.schneider@jku.at
JEL Classification: Keywords:
O17, O5, D78, H2, H11, H26
corruption, emigration, educational attainment, government expenditures, income inequality, labor markets
1
See de Haas (2007) for a survey of the literature. Much of the theoretical work on remittances has been devoted to the primary motive of migrants to remit. Among the motives put forward are, altruism (Banerjee 1984), insurance (Rosenzweig, 1988), investment (Lucas and Stark 1985), inheritance (Hoddinott 1994), risk diversification (Stark and Levhari 1982).
In the present study, we focus on corruption as a push factor for labour emigration. The existence of corruption could lower the returns to education slowing down the process of economics growth acting as a push factor for out-migration (Dimant et al. 2013). In the presence of corruption, jobs are not granted based upon merit but political connections. This could lead to higher levels of unemployment and/or underemployment, lowering the returns to the stock of human capital. Corruption has been also been found to change the size and composition of public expenditure away from vital sectors such as health and education (Mauro 1998, Wei 2001) toward sectors which involve greater secrecy and less transparency such as defence. Gupta et al. (2002, 2000) argue that corruption affects the provision of
Johannes Kepler University of Linz and IZA
Discussion Paper No. 8094 April 2014
IZA P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 E-mail: iza@
Does Corruption Promote Emigration? An Empirical Examination
Arusha Cooray
University of Wollongong and CAMA, Australian National University
Friedrich Schneider
SERIES
IZA DP No. 8094
PAPER
Does Corruption Promote Emigration? An Empirical Examination
Arusha Cooray Friedrich Schneider
DISCUSSION
April 2014
Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor
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