Corruption, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Prosocial Institutions

Abstract

This article describes how corruption can and ought to be viewed as competing scales of cooperation. Viewing corruption through the lens of the cooperation literature gives us a mature theoretical and empirical framework from which to derive predictions and make sense of existing findings. This article was originally posted online at Evonomics and ProMarket, The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as "Bribery, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Prosocial Instituions". I'm publishing a pre-print here for easier citation and for eventual expansion.

Keywords: cooperation, corruption, bribery, nepotism, cronyism, large-scale cooperation, public goods game, bribery game