Applying Behavioral Science to increase compliance and reports of gifts received by public servants in Mexico

Behavioral sciences offer a more realistic model of human conduct than traditional models based on Rational Choice Theory. With empirical findings, behavioral sciences offer to policy makers new ways to reduce undesirable... [ view full abstract ]

Behavioral sciences offer a more realistic model of human conduct than traditional models based on Rational Choice Theory. With empirical findings, behavioral sciences offer to policy makers new ways to reduce undesirable behaviors such as dishonesty and corruption. In Mexico, corruption is thought as the second most important problem just behind insecurity and 39% of Mexicans think that it is getting worse despite the significant increase in government expending to fight it. In average, 14% of the income of a Mexican family is spend in corruption activities. Corruption in public service arises in a variety of manners, from direct payments to bribes, favors and gifts. This study applies insights from behavioral sciences to change public servant’s conduct in relation to the gifts they get and the truthfulness of the reports that they are obliged by law to provide. The research question this study addresses is: what kind of message has a greater impact to increase reports of gifts in Mexican public servants? This question is answered in two separate ways: one responding to self-reports of gifts (honesty) and the other one, the reports about the gifts given and received by others (whistleblowing).
There is evidence of the prevalence of gifts in different sectors and their impact in individual’s behavior due a change in preferences. Also, it is known that the mechanism by which preference is affected by gifts has its origin in unconscious neural responses. Moreover, studies show that receiving gifts detonates reciprocity mechanisms, so that the person receiving a gift feels obliged to return it in form of favors. For public administration, this is problematic. Gifts to public servants can be perceived differently than bribes; none the less they can cause preferential treatment and, in that manner, corruption.
Public officials in Mexico receive more presents in December compared to other months because of holiday season. This will be used to measure the impact of different types of messages designed to inform about the obligation to report gifts and encourage its compliance in comparable agencies of the Mexican federal government. For that purpose, by the end of November we will send to public servants e-mails with the messages and information about the reports of gift reception will be collected in February 2017. The messages will be of four types and each one will constitute a treatment condition: (1) appealing to the importance of law compliance, (2) social and moral norms, (3) the impact of corruption on others, and (4) fear of being accused by a teammate.
There are several successful experiences of interventions based in reminder messages to change behavior and increase law compliance in a variety of themes such as energy conservation, tax payment, medical treatments and dishonesty. Unlike previous studies on gifts, this one is an experiment with real public servants outside a laboratory environment. Thus, this study gives solid insights to design cost-effective interventions against corruption.