(Assignment 3) Corruption and Development – N Chandrasekhar

Seven Sentence Summary of:

Behavioural And Institutional Economics As An Inspiration To Anti-Corruption: Some counterintuitive findings

Johann Graf Lambsdorff

From the Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption. ed. Paul Haywood, Routledge, Oxford: 2015

1. “Most of us tend to think about anti-corruption as a matter of personal integrity and institutional rigour.”

2. “But there are some wicked but successful strategies that we tend to disregard, just because they do not conform to the stewardship that we expect from a virtuous person”

3. “The frequency of bribery can be reduced by rendering reciprocity uncertain, by undermining the stability of corrupt transactions.”

4. “Rather than deterring bribery by help of detection and punishment the idea is to seek methods for inhibiting corrupt reciprocity and rather encourage corrupt actors to cheat each other.”

5. “A briber is allowed to keep the awarded contract and entitled to claim back the bribe if he reports the infraction to prosecutors. Bribery and subsequent reporting is turned into an attractive strategy.”

6. “Leniency should be given to those who cheat their corrupt counterparts rather than to those who committed the less immoral violation”

7. “Containing corruption will always require accountable leaders, courageous citizens, clear laws and professional officials. But in a complex social order some more wicked instruments are needed to support our fallible intuitions.”