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: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/17875551/misunderestimating-corruption http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15847 |
| id |
okr-10986-15847 |
|---|---|
| recordtype |
oai_dc |
| spelling |
okr-10986-158472021-04-23T14:03:23Z Misunderestimating Corruption Kraay, Aart Murrell, Peter BENCHMARK BIASES BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION CLASSIFICATION COMPUTERS CONDITIONS CORRELATIONS COVARIANCE DATA COLLECTION DESCRIPTION DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH EQUATIONS EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN EXPERIMENTS FINANCIAL SUPPORT GENERALIZATIONS GOVERNMENT AGENCIES GUILT INDIVIDUALS INTERVIEWS LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS LAY OUT MANUSCRIPT METHODOLOGY MODELING MOTIVATION NOTATION ORDERING PERCEPTION PREDICTIONS PROBABILITIES PROBABILITY PROTOCOL QUESTIONNAIRES RANDOM VARIABLES RANDOMIZATION RESEARCH METHODS RESEARCH WORKING PAPERS RESEARCHERS SAMPLING TECHNIQUES SIGNIFICANCE LEVEL SOLUTIONS STANDARD ERRORS SURVEY DATA SURVEY METHODOLOGY WEB corruption reticence random response questions 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. 2013-09-26T14:41:22Z 2013-09-26T14:41:22Z 2013-05 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/17875551/misunderestimating-corruption http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15847 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 6488 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
BENCHMARK BIASES BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION CLASSIFICATION COMPUTERS CONDITIONS CORRELATIONS COVARIANCE DATA COLLECTION DESCRIPTION DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH EQUATIONS EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN EXPERIMENTS FINANCIAL SUPPORT GENERALIZATIONS GOVERNMENT AGENCIES GUILT INDIVIDUALS INTERVIEWS LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS LAY OUT MANUSCRIPT METHODOLOGY MODELING MOTIVATION NOTATION ORDERING PERCEPTION PREDICTIONS PROBABILITIES PROBABILITY PROTOCOL QUESTIONNAIRES RANDOM VARIABLES RANDOMIZATION RESEARCH METHODS RESEARCH WORKING PAPERS RESEARCHERS SAMPLING TECHNIQUES SIGNIFICANCE LEVEL SOLUTIONS STANDARD ERRORS SURVEY DATA SURVEY METHODOLOGY WEB corruption reticence random response questions |
| spellingShingle |
BENCHMARK BIASES BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION CLASSIFICATION COMPUTERS CONDITIONS CORRELATIONS COVARIANCE DATA COLLECTION DESCRIPTION DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH EQUATIONS EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN EXPERIMENTS FINANCIAL SUPPORT GENERALIZATIONS GOVERNMENT AGENCIES GUILT INDIVIDUALS INTERVIEWS LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS LAY OUT MANUSCRIPT METHODOLOGY MODELING MOTIVATION NOTATION ORDERING PERCEPTION PREDICTIONS PROBABILITIES PROBABILITY PROTOCOL QUESTIONNAIRES RANDOM VARIABLES RANDOMIZATION RESEARCH METHODS RESEARCH WORKING PAPERS RESEARCHERS SAMPLING TECHNIQUES SIGNIFICANCE LEVEL SOLUTIONS STANDARD ERRORS SURVEY DATA SURVEY METHODOLOGY WEB corruption reticence random response questions Kraay, Aart Murrell, Peter Misunderestimating Corruption |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 6488 |
| description |
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. |
| format |
Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
| author |
Kraay, Aart Murrell, Peter |
| author_facet |
Kraay, Aart Murrell, Peter |
| author_sort |
Kraay, Aart |
| title |
Misunderestimating Corruption |
| title_short |
Misunderestimating Corruption |
| title_full |
Misunderestimating Corruption |
| title_fullStr |
Misunderestimating Corruption |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Misunderestimating Corruption |
| title_sort |
misunderestimating corruption |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2013 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/17875551/misunderestimating-corruption http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15847 |
| _version_ |
1764431610543865856 |