Journal articles published externally

2009, Alatas, Vivi, Cameron, Lisa, Chaudhuri, Ananish, Erkal, Nisvan, Gangadharan, Lata

We report results from a corruption experiment with Indonesian public servants and Indonesian students. Our results suggest that the Indonesian public servant subjects have a significantly lower tolerance of corruption than the Indonesian students. We find no evidence that this is due to a selection effect. The reasons given by the subjects for their behaviour suggest that the differences in behavior across the subject pools are driven by their different real life experiences. For example, when abstaining from corruption, public servants more often cite the need to reduce the social costs of corruption as a reason for their actions, and when engaging in corruption, they cite low government salaries or a belief that corruption is a necessary evil in the current environment. In contrast, students give more simplistic moral reasons. We conclude by emphasizing that results obtained from different subject pools can complement each other in illuminating different aspects of the same problem.

2009, Alatas, Vivi, Cameron, Lisa, Chaudhuri, Ananish, Erkal, Nisvan, Gangadharan, Lata

A substantial body of recent research looks at differences in the behavior of men and women in diverse economic transactions. We contribute to this literature by investigating gender differences in behavior when confronted with a common bribery problem. Our study departs from the previous literature on gender and corruption by using economic experiments. Based on data collected in Australia (Melbourne), India (Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta), and Singapore, we show that while women in Australia are less tolerant of corruption than men in Australia, no significant gender differences are seen in India, Indonesia, and Singapore. Hence, our findings suggest that the gender differences reported in previous studies may not be as universal as stated, and may be more culture specific. We also explore behavioral differences by gender across countries and find larger variations in women's behavior toward corruption than in men's across the countries in our sample.