This study presents a theoretical model of honest behavior in the public sector (public-sector honesty) and its relationship with corruption. We test this model empirically by utilizing and extending a unique data set of honest behavior of public- and private-sector workers across 40 countries, gathered in a field experiment conducted by Cohn et al. (N = 17,303). We find that public-sector honesty is determined by country-level societal culture and public-sector culture; public-sector honesty predicts corruption levels, independently from the effect of incentive structures—in line with the Becker–Stigler model. We find no support for a global mean difference in honest behavior between public- and private-sector workers, alongside substantive cross-country variation in sector differences in honest behavior. The emphasis assigned to honesty of public-sector workers within each country appears to be locally determined by the prevailing public-sector culture. These results imply that beyond cross-national variation in the scope of publicness, it is very content may vary across countries. Lastly, the results of this study consistently fail to support the selection thesis, and we discuss the practical implications of this result for anticorruption policy.

中文翻译：

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公共部门的诚实和腐败：来自 40 个国家的现场证据

本研究提出了公共部门诚实行为（公共部门诚实）及其与腐败的关系的理论模型。我们通过利用和扩展由 Cohn 等人进行的实地实验收集的 40 个国家的公共和私营部门工人诚实行为的独特数据集，对该模型进行实证测试。（N = 17,303）。我们发现公共部门的诚信是由国家层面的社会文化和公共部门的文化决定的；公共部门的诚实预测腐败程度，独立于激励结构的影响——与贝克尔-斯蒂格勒模型一致。我们发现没有证据支持公共部门和私营部门工人之间诚实行为的全球平均差异，以及诚实行为部门差异的实质性跨国差异。每个国家对公共部门工作人员诚实的重视程度似乎是由当地流行的公共部门文化决定的。这些结果表明，除了公共范围的跨国差异之外，它的内容也可能因国家而异。最后，这项研究的结果始终未能支持选择论点，我们讨论了这一结果对反腐败政策的实际意义。