8. Apples, barrels and orchards:
dispositional, situational and systemic causes
‘Away with that rotten apple, it’ll spoil the whole barrel!’ That was the reaction of the business
sector when it became known that one company had showered oficials on a large scale and
over a long period with expensive presents, exotic trips and payments in kind. This kind of
reaction is normal. Where there is a suspicion of malpractice, the rotten apple must be tracked
down and eliminated as quickly as possible. But is it really the case that a rotten apple will
contaminate the rest?
Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel used data from what they describe as a ‘unique natural
experiment’ on the extent to which the culture of a country inluences the corruption of
inhabitants. Under ‘culture’ we understand the collectively shared beliefs about right and
wrong, what is permitted and what is not. For this experiment they examined parking offences
in NewYork by 1,700 United Nations diplomats from 146 different countries. And a good many
offences there were too! Between November 1997 and November 2002 they had received
more than 150,000 parking ines altogether. The reason for the high number is that until the
end of 2002 diplomats and their families had immunity, a privilege which meant that their
parking ines were waived. Because there were no sanctions on their behavior, Fisman and
Miguel were able to examine whether the country of origin affected the number of ines that
each diplomat had received in the ive years. As a gauge for the culture of a country they used
the corruption index of Transparency International, an organization which works to combat
corruption worldwide. This index indicates a country’s perceived corruption level. Countries
such as New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden and Singapore are seen as fairly clean, whereas
countries such as Somalia, Afghanistan and Burma are seen as corrupt. The researchers
checked various points in advance, including the country’s gross national product and the
diplomat’s salary, so that the relationship between the position of the country of origin in the
corruption index and the number of parking ines could be calculated as accurately as possible.
Fisman and Miguel did indeed ind a strong relationship. Diplomats from corrupt countries
received considerably more parking ines than diplomats from non-corrupt countries.
The diplomats from Kuwait took the prize. Over the ive years they committed 249 parking
8. Apples, barrels and orchards: dispositional, situational and systemic causes
