On Institutional Designs and Corruption by Imitation

Abstract

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we claim the corruption is driven by imitative behavior for those agents facing an institutional design of corruption. So this paper analyzes an individual level approach and tackles the question of why people engage in corrupt exchange. We show that institutional design determines corruption and that there exists a threshold level in order to imitate the noncorrupt (honest) behavior.Corrupt behavior; Evolutionary dynamics; Imitative behavior; Institutions and operations