Kaushik Basu - Game theory approach to corruption

Game theory is a study of strategic decision making. More formally, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers"

Kaushik Basu has joined this debate in an academic and provocative paper titled "Why for a class of bribes, the Act of Giving a bribe should be treated as legal." This short paper argues that for a category of bribes called "harassment bribes" the bribe giver should have full immunity from any punitive action by the state. Using a game theory model, it is suggested that such reform will deliberately misalign the incentives of the bribe giver and the bribe taker, leading to the increased detection of bribery. It concludes that the increased detection of bribery will mould the behaviour of the bribe taker to desist from taking bribes, and the overall decline of this form of corruption.

for such crimes, we must not treat the ordinary citizen, who is the victim of this practice, on par with the official who takes the bribe, as our current law does. In particular, we should not punish the bribe giver but should instead make the penalty stiffer for the bribe taker and also require him to return the bribe. My belief is that if we make this kind of an amendment to India’s Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, there will be a sharp decrease in bribery. This is because it will now be in the interest of the bribe giver to get the official who took the bribe caught. Knowing this, there will be much greater reluctance on the part of officials to take bribes.

Soon after the British in India declared sati a crime, they went on to declare witnessing sati also a crime. Is there any surprise that the courts seldom found any witnesses for sati?