Cultures of Corruption

Researchers from the US National Bureau for Economic Research [PDF] have correlated foreign diplomats unpaid parking tickets in New York City with their country's relative corruption. The surprise? None. The more corrupt a country tends to be, the greater the likelihood that it has unpaid parking tickets. According to the paper:

Corruption is believed to be a major factor impeding economic development, but the importance of legal enforcement versus cultural norms in controlling corruption is poorly understood. To disentangle these two factors, we exploit a natural experiment, the stationing of thousands of diplomats from around the world in New York City. Diplomatic immunity means there was essentially zero legal enforcement of diplomatic parking violations, allowing us to examine the role of cultural norms alone. This generates a revealed preference measure of corruption based on real-world behavior for government officials all acting in the same setting. We find tremendous persistence in corruption norms: diplomats from high corruption countries (based on existing survey-based indices) have significantly more parking violations. In a second main result, officials from countries that survey evidence indicates have less favorable popular views of the United States commit significantly more parking violations, providing nonlaboratory evidence on the role that sentiment and affinity play in economic decision-making.

The worst offenders? Kuwait with 246 unpaid parking tickets for each of its 9 diplomats; Egypt with 140 for each its 24 diplomats; Chad with 124 for each its 2 diplomats; Sudan with 119 for each of its 7 diplomats; and Bulgaria with 118 for each of its 6 diplomats. Canada ranks with the best with 0 unpaid parking tickets for each of our 24 diplomats.

Found via the Foreign Policy blog.