Gaming - The Logic of Corruption

Abstract

Corruption is pervasive in all societies and in all walks of life. Governments, public and private companies, sports, education, religious and charitable organizations: none are untouched by corruption, which seems to be both timeless and universal. We propose that gaming, an unethical behavior on which individual agents can become dependent without being aware of it, is at the heart of corruption. Gaming can become pervasive, and upon discovery forces organizations to either stop the gaming or to engage in deception to cover it up and keep profiting from it, many choosing the latter. We present two cognitive mechanisms for this study of corruption based on gaming that allows us to explain the appearance of gaming in organizations and why it may not be stopped once it is detected, sustaining corruption. We illustrate our framework with an experimental design.