Active and passive corruption: Theory and evidence

Focusing on the idea that a different allocation of bargaining power between the public official and the private agent can explain the emergence of two types of corruption, this paper develops a theoretical model which provides an account of different level of bribes and incentives when the bargaining power is in the hands of the official (active corruption) or in the hands of the private agent (passive corruption). By employing Italian data which explicitly differentiate between active and passive corruption, the paper empirically re-examines the determinants of the aggregate level corruption. The results show that the various categories of government expenditure, which proxy different allocations of bargaining power, differently affect active and passive corruption.