Corvinus
Corvinus

Are parliaments with more parties cheaper to bribe?

Bannikova, Marina and Tasnádi, Attila (2015) Are parliaments with more parties cheaper to bribe? Working Paper. Corvinus University of Budapest. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

We collect data about 172 countries: their parliaments, level of corruption, perceptions of corruption of parliament and political parties. We find weak empirical evidence supporting the conclusion that corruption increases as the number of parties increases. To provide a theoretical explanation of this finding we present a simple theoretical model of parliaments formed by parties, which must decide whether to accept or reject a proposal in the presence of a briber, who is interested in having the bill passed. We compute the number of deputies the briber needs to persuade on average in parliaments with different structures described by the number of parties, the voting quota, and the allocation of seats among parties. We find that the average number of seats needed to be bribed decreases as the number of parties increases. Restricting the minimal number of seats a party may have, we show that the average number of seats to be bribed is smaller in parliaments without small parties. Restricting the maximum number of seats a party may have, we find that under simple majority the average number of seats needed to be bribed is smaller for parliaments in which one party has majority, but under qualified majority it hardly changes.

Item Type:Monograph (Working Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:bribing, party composition of a parliament, knapsack problem
JEL classification:D73 - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
D72 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making: Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Divisions:Faculty of Economics > Department of Mathematics
Subjects:Economics
Political science
Computer science
Projects:MTA-BCE "Lendület" Strategic Interactions Research Group
References:
ID Code:2028
Deposited By: Attila Tasnádi
Deposited On:13 Aug 2015 19:07
Last Modified:13 Aug 2015 19:07

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