The Case for Legal Bribes

To help a nation plagued by corruption scandals on a veritably daily basis, the top government economist has suggested a radical solution: Paying bribes should be legal. “India’s chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu argues that for a certain class of bribes, which possibly for want of a better word he describes as ‘harassment bribes,’ bribe giving should be a legitimate activity. …He argues that decriminalizing bribe paying would cause a sharp decline in the incidence of bribery. …He suggests that once the law is altered in this manner, the interests of the bribe giver and the bribe taker will be at odds—and that will help reduce corruption.”