Bribery, Service Quality and Attitudes Towards Government

Working paper.

Recommended citation: Citizens’ exposure to corruption in public service delivery has hitherto been associated with negative attitudes towards government. This paper argues that the two components of corruption experiences, namely whether a payment is required and whether an illegal advantage is granted, affect citizen’s perceptions of state capacity in different ways. The act of paying a public official informs a citizen of the state’s inability to prevent its workers from engaging in corruption. In contrast, the experience of obtaining illegal advantages from public officials informs a citizen of the state’s ability to provide expedited service delivery. To test the implications of this argument, I rely on data from a large household survey conducted in Guatemala. The findings show that, experiencing extortion by public officials has a negative effect on individuals’ perceptions of the government’s capacity to provide services. Furthermore, exposure to illegal advantages obtained through favor exchanges positively impacts perceptions of state capacity, while bribery, defined as an exchange of money for access to illegal advantages, has no effect on such perceptions.