Misunderestimating Corruption
Estimates of the extent of corruption rely largely on self-reports of individuals, business managers, and government officials. Yet it is well known that survey respondents are reticent to tell the truth about activities to which social and legal s...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/17875551/misunderestimating-corruption http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15847 |
| Summary: | Estimates of the extent of corruption
rely largely on self-reports of individuals, business
managers, and government officials. Yet it is well known
that survey respondents are reticent to tell the truth about
activities to which social and legal stigma are attached,
implying a downward bias in survey-based estimates of
corruption. This paper develops a method to estimate the
prevalence of reticent behavior, in order to isolate rates
of corruption that fully reflect respondent reticence in
answering sensitive questions. The method is based on a
statistical model of how respondents behave when answering a
combination of conventional and random-response survey
questions. The responses to these different types of
questions reflect three probabilities -- that the respondent
has done the sensitive act in question, that the respondent
exhibits reticence in answering sensitive questions, and
that a reticent respondent is not candid in answering any
specific sensitive question. These probabilities can be
estimated using a method-of-moments estimator. Evidence from
the 2010 World Bank Enterprise survey in Peru suggests
reticence-adjusted estimates of corruption that are roughly
twice as large as indicated by responses to standard
questions. Reticence-adjusted estimates of corruption are
also substantially higher in a set of ten Asian countries
covered in the Gallup World Poll. |
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