Zero Rupee Note
I wonder how similar bribery culture is to tip culture. In the US where we tip restaurant workers, restaurant wages are often much lower than comparable positions in industries that don't have tipping, so much so that the difference is often explicitly included in minimum wage laws. Do countries with more bribery experience a similar effect, where the wages of police officers and other bribery-prone worker are much lower than they would otherwise be?If so, that creates a pretty tricky equilibrium problem. Even if I think bribery is ethically wrong, I don't want to be in a position where I'm asking someone else to accept less than their "fair"/expected/equilibrium wage. Higher wages might be a prerequisite for getting rid of a culture of bribery, but at the same time, raising wages per se probably doesn't do much to reduce bribery in the short term?