Exploiting the Poor: Bureaucratic Corruption and Poverty in Africa

While extant research has focused on the causes and consequences of corruption at the macro-level, less effort has been devoted to understanding the micro-foundation of corruption. We argue that poor people are more likely to be victims of corrupt behavior by street-level bureaucrats as the poor often rely heavily on services provided by governments. We test this proposition using micro-level survey data from the Afrobarometer. Multilevel regressions across 18 countries show that poor people are much more prone to experience having to pay bribes to government officials. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.