Literature shows that corrupt behaviour appears to lower the level of ethical consciousness, economical consciousness and society's economic activities. Another literature shows that the intention to bribe positively correlates with an individual's attitude towards the need to succeed.
Notwithstanding, grand corruption like that associated with the arms deal receives most media attention, petty corrupt behaviour can be as damaging if left unchecked. In fact, in some countries, petty corruption is very prevalent.
Petty corrupt behaviour includes "baksheesh", "backhander", "coffee money", gifts, "mordida", "spiffs", or whatever term that is used by bribees (bribe takers). It also includes billing personal calls to the company, padding expense accounts and cheating on time cards.
Some motorists who run above speed limit and caught by traffic officials on the road, are willing to offer a small bribe to the officials to avoid a speeding ticket.
Despite being a petty bribe, a total amount of that in one country may not be small if a large number of the officials are receiving petty bribes. Although, such a bribe is petty, it may affect one nation's attitude towards larger ethical problems.
Employees in the public service, such as traffic officials, tend to be risk-averse. In some countries, employees in the public services are considered as long-term tenure holders. The employees are protected by the rule that they have the right not to be dismissed without cause and to keep staying in their office until retirement age. It follows that the employees would never run the risk of being laid off or unemployed without cause for the duration of their tenured period. Therefore, one may consider employees in the public service as risk-free in finding jobs.
Corrupt officials' past experiences may make them be known that some (or many) members of the public are likely to give petty bribes to facilitate services that can be withheld or denied.
Usually, tightwads will be processed, but at the back of the line. In some countries, obnoxious tightwads who like to make loud speeches about corruption may find themselves with insurmountable visa irregularities.
Receiving petty bribes for the corrupt official is said to be like kissing in junior high school. Both parties (public and the official) must be willing. However, if one party (the official) is brash or unwise and asks for bribes all the time, there's more risk of being monitored by the headquarters and severely rebuked for her/his corrupt behaviour.
A task to be assigned to economists is to analyse petty corrupt behaviour with respect to economic theories, such as theories on economics of "small decisions" and experimental economics.
One of the theories is concerned with the behavioural tendency, called "underweighting of rare events".
Economists would examine that petty corrupt behaviour by individual officials is caused by underweighting of rare events and its probabilities.
It seems that the common perception among the corrupt officials that the public largely interacts with traffic officials on the road where the actions of corrupt officials are difficult to be monitored and therefore penalised. Under this perception, the corrupt officials are likely to subjectively underweigh the probability that their actions are being monitored and severely penalised by supervisors/headquarters.
In fact, a research shows very few of all respondents in the survey vowed they ever tried to report corrupt officials to headquarters.
Behavioural phenomenon "underweighting of rare events" has been reported by researchers in experimental economics - a relatively new and rapidly expanding branch of economics.
An international academic association, The Economic Science Association, in the field of experimental economics was organised in 1986. In 1998, the first journal specialising in research in this field was published. Notwithstanding the fact that experimental economics has its short history, a number of researchers in diverse fields are presenting substantial work on experimental economics.
In 2002, Professor Vernon Smith, a prominent economist at Chapman University in the US, won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering and outstanding work in experimental economics.
Harvard professors have been conducting laboratory-based research on underweighting of rare events with a new method that attempts to develop theories based on the behaviour of experimental subjects - mostly undergraduates.
It is hoped that further experimental economics research can provide a useful arena to pursue an ongoing dialogue between economic theories and evidence of petty corrupt behaviour that is triggered and caused by underweighting of rare events.
By Takemi Fujikawa
The writer is a senior lecturer with the Graduate School of Business, Universiti Sains Malaysia
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