José Atilano Pena López

Does Corruption Have Social Roots? The Role of Culture and Social Capital

The aim of this work is to analyse the influence of sociocultural factors on corruption levels. Taking as starting point Husted (J Int Bus Studies 30:339–359, 1999) and Graeff (In: Lambsdorff J, Taube M, Schramm M (eds) The new institutional economics of corruption. Routledge, London, 2005) proposals, we consider both the interrelation between cultural dimensions and the diverse expressions of social capital with corruption. According to our results, the universalistic trust (linking and bridging social capital) constitutes a positive social capital that is negatively linked to corruption. In contrast, the particularistic levels of trust (bonding) can constitute a negative social capital directly related to corruption levels. Furthermore, cultures which are favourable to the legitimation of dependency relations and the formation of closed particularistic groups (power-distance and community factors) create a breeding ground for the development of these amoral rent-seeking structures.

Identification. sympathy and willingness to pay

The present study analyzes the effects of sympathy and identification between sports fans and clubs in the recognition of willingness to pay in favor of these organizations. With this objective, after reconsidering the diverse approaches to this type of bonds, we propose in the first part a theoretical model that considers the psychosociological factors which affect the willingness to pay for this kind of goods and services that have characteristics similar to public goods. This model allows us to extract two hypotheses on the interrelation between sympathy, income and willingness to pay. In the second part, we put these hypotheses to the test. The results establish, as predicted, that identification or sympathy with a club constitutes an important causal factor in its valuation, although income has no causal relation with this. Both can explain some irregularities found within the contingent valuation method.