The relationship between decentralization and corruption has been discussed extensively, but little is known about the variation of corruption across government levels. Using an original survey where French citizens were asked to assess corruption at all levels of government, we observe that corruption perceived at a government level is higher, the higher the government level in the government hierarchy. Specifically, municipal governments are perceived as the least corrupt, followed by local governments, senators, deputies, and the national cabinet. The president of the Republic is perceived as slightly less corrupt than the national cabinet, but more corrupt than any other level of government. The relationship is robust to alternative specifications, controlling for a series of individual and regional characteristics, and to alternative definitions of the dependent variable. The finding is not reducible to geographic distance. We observe it in several other countries.

关于权力下放与腐败之间的关系已进行了广泛讨论，但对于各级政府之间腐败的变化知之甚少。在一项原始调查中，要求法国公民评估各级政府的腐败情况，我们观察到，在政府层次上，人们对腐败的认知程度越高，政府等级越高。具体而言，市政府被认为是腐败最少的，其次是地方政府，参议员，代表和国家内阁。人们认为共和国总统的腐败程度不及国家内阁，但比任何其他级别的政府都高。该关系对于替代规范具有鲁棒性，可控制一系列个人和区域特征，以及因变量的替代定义。该发现不能简化为地理距离。我们在其他几个国家也有观察到。