The Marginal Disutility from Corruption in Social Programs: Evidence from Program Administrators and Beneficiaries
中文摘要
对福利项目中欺诈行为的担忧，是世界各地反对此类项目的常见理由。我们在印度尼西亚对超过28,000名福利项目管理者和超过19,000名受益人开展了一项调查实验，以引出“腐败的边际负效用”——即更慷慨的社会援助与腐败造成的损失之间的权衡。仅仅提及腐败，就会降低受访者对项目成功的感知评价，其程度相当于少发放超过26个百分点的援助。然而，受访者对腐败金额的多寡并不敏感——他们愿意为了让受益人多得到1美元，而接受额外2美元的损失。项目管理者与受益人的评估结果相近。（JEL D73, H53, I32, I38, O15, O17）
Abstract
Concerns about fraud in welfare programs are common arguments worldwide against such programs. We conducted a survey experiment with over 28,000 welfare program administrators and over 19,000 beneficiaries in Indonesia to elicit the “marginal disutility from corruption”—the trade-off between more generous social assistance and losses due to corruption. Merely mentioning corruption reduced perceived program success, equivalent to distributing more than 26 percentage points less aid. However, respondents were not sensitive to the amount of corruption—respondents were willing to trade off $2 of additional losses for an additional $1 distributed to beneficiaries. Program administrators and beneficiaries had similar assessments. (JEL D73, H53, I32, I38, O15, O17)