Seminar

Past

The Real State: Inside the Congo's Traffic Police Agency

Raul Sanchez de la Sierra

  • Date14 September 2023
  • Time 11h00 - 12h30
  • Room Auditorium 5

Abstract

Leveraging relationships built over three years, we analyze the organization of corruption in one setting: Kinshasa's commissariat of the Congo's traffic police agency. The manager of each police station posts teams of police agents to the street and, in exchange for the right to collect bribes, demands from each team to escort a quota of vehicles to the station, where the manager takes a bribes himself. We design six data collection branches in one of its two battalions during one month and we experimentally decrease the quota in randomly selected team-days. First, using a random sample of untreated team-days, we document that of the bribe revenue, which is fourfold that from fines, 63\% is generated through the quota. Second, we find that the quota worsens the agency's first mandate---prevention of congestion and accidents---while not improving its second---deterrence of noncompliance to the driving code. Third, using the experiment, we discuss the conditions under which such systems may spread and may be especially costly. The findings emphasize that the manager's demand for bribes can be significant and can distort incentives above and beyond the distortions that are created by individual state officials' corruption.

Other seminars

Past

Dissecting political polarization: from attitudes to affect

  • Seminar

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences Seminar

  • Date 21 May 2024

  • Place Auditorium 3

  • Speaker or organiser Marijn Keijzer

Details

Past

Conducting Qualitative Interviews with AI

  • Seminar

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences Seminar

  • Date 19 March 2024

  • Place Auditorium 3 (Ground floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Ingar Haaland

Details

Past

Building Criminal Networks in Prison - Evidence from French cellmates

  • Seminar

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences Seminar

  • Date 14 March 2024

  • Place Auditorium 4

  • Speaker or organiser Arnaud Philippe

Details