Corruption contagion as a sociocultural phenomenon: An agent-based model

Abstract

Corruption is a social problem that seriously affects the functioning of society and in some cases, it is even perceived as an acceptable social behavior. The acceptance or rejection of corruption depends both on the own judgment and on the observed behavior in the environment; so that corruption can be spread or eradicated through social interaction. In this work, we study the convergence dynamics of society towards honesty in view of the implementation of two mechanisms: the modification of the individual perception of corruption; and the complaint of corruption. Since corruption is a complex socioeconomic phenomenon, we study it from the perspective of Agent-Based Modeling. The framework of our analysis is corruption in public administration, which is the one that has the most incidence in Mexico. We found that the mechanism that most favors the eradication of corruption is the complaint. Results also suggest that societies can converge towards honesty even when initial corruption is high, but not majority. Unfortunately, the low credibility in the system discourages reporting, so effective implementation and monitoring of reporting, together with fostering social awareness that corruption affects us all, should be promoted.