Bribes are gifts that are given with an expectation of favourable treatment from a public official or an authority figure. In some cultures, gift giving is a widely accepted part of social interaction and the rejection of gifts may be frowned upon. The purpose of this article is to investigate whether and how the (in)ability to reject gifts/bribes impacts corrupt behaviour. We present the results of an economic experiment in which two agents (firms) are competing for governmental funds. The firms may choose to bribe a public official, who is responsible for distributing the funds. We find that if there is an option to reject bribes, then the average funds allocated to the bribers are lower than in case there is no such option. This holds regardless of whether the bribe was, in fact, accepted or rejected. We also find that if the bribe was rejected, the bribers receive less governmental funds on average. Our results shed some light on the persistence of corruption in cultures in which giving gifts and expecting gifts in return is a deeply rooted custom. Prevalence of this practice in the social context spills over into the business context and leads to higher corruption levels, and more economic distortion than when bribing is just a form of business transaction. JEL: D01, D02, D73, D90

中文翻译：

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“我给了你更多”：腐败实验中的自由裁量权

贿赂是指期望得到公职人员或权威人士给予优待的礼物。在某些文化中，赠送礼物是社会互动中被广泛接受的一部分，拒绝礼物的想法可能会遭到拒绝。本文的目的是调查拒绝礼物/贿赂的能力是否（以及）如何影响腐败行为。我们介绍了一项经济实验的结果，其中两个代理商（公司）在争夺政府资金。这些公司可以选择贿赂负责分配资金的公职人员。我们发现，如果有拒绝贿赂的选择，那么分配给贿赂者的平均资金就会比没有这种选择的情况低。不管贿赂实际上是被接受还是被拒绝，这都是成立的。我们还发现，如果贿赂被拒绝，行贿者平均获得的政府资金更少。我们的研究结果揭示了文化中腐败的持续存在，在这种文化中，馈赠和期望回报是一种根深蒂固的习俗。与贿赂仅仅是商业交易的一种形式相比，这种做法在社会环境中的普遍性蔓延到商业环境中，并导致更高的腐败水平和更大的经济扭曲。JEL：D01，D02，D73，D90 与经济贿赂相比，贿赂仅仅是商业交易的一种形式。JEL：D01，D02，D73，D90 与经济贿赂相比，贿赂仅仅是商业交易的一种形式。JEL：D01，D02，D73，D90