Exploiting the Poor: Bureaucratic Corruption and Poverty in Africa

This paper develops a simple model of the relationship between poverty and corruption in Africa, suggesting that poor people are more likely to be victims of corrupt behavior by street-level government bureaucrats. Poor people often rely heavily on services provided by governments and are therefore more likely to be met by demands for bribes in return for obtaining those services. The authors' results show that poor people are much more prone to pay bribes to government officials, suggesting that the people who are the worst off materially are also more likely to be victims of corruption.

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