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.
Keywords: Bribing, party composition of a parliament, knapsack problem.
JEL Classification Number: D73, D72. |