We conducted bribery experiments in China and in Germany to analyze
the effect of staff rotation on corruption. After being bribed, Chinese and
German subjects in the role of public officials less often reciprocated and instead
behaved more often opportunistically when matched to strangers compared to
partners. Thus, staff rotation reduced the public officials´ propensity to behave
corruptly in our experiment. German subjects in the role of firms anticipated this
behavior: In stranger matching, their frequency of bribe-giving was lower than in
partner matching, and if they bribed, the bribe value was significantly lower
when staff rotation was introduced. For Chinese subjects in the role of firms, this
effect of our anti-corruption policy was not significant. We discuss the role of
social norms, such as reciprocity and trust, to explain our results.
