Every vote counts : evidence on corruption culture peer effects from representatives' voting attendance
Abstrakt
In this paper we study the effect of peers and culture on corrupt behavior. We use the European Parliament (EP) as a natural laboratory, as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) face the same institutional setting, however they differ in corruption culture due to different nationalities.
The research question is whether and to what extent the corrupt behavior among MEPs from old EU member states changes after they interact with the MEPs from new EU member states who entered the European Parliament in 2004. We study this question by analyzing the patterns of shirking behavior, as MEPs recieve a per diem compensation for every day she signs the attendance sheet.