THE DYNAMICS AND EVOLUTIONARY STABILITY OF CULTURES OF CORRUPTION: THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSES

This article analyzes different cultures of corruption with regard to their evolutionary stability, i.e. their ability to annihilate small disturbances in the equilibria between corrupt and noncorrupt agents. The article starts with the development of an evolutionary model of the interactions between corrupt and noncorrupt citizens and functionaries of the state, which is subsequently explored by formal analyses and computer simulation. It turns out that zero-corruption is always evolutionarily stable, whereas pervasive corruption displays only conditional evolutionary stability and thus is empirically rare. Between these two extremes there is organized bureaucratic corruption, which is in most cases quasi-stable with fluctuations around an equilibrium representing the coexistence of corrupt and noncorrupt agents. Empirical analyses of corruption data from 89 countries seem to corroborate these theoretical insights.