Replication Data for Why efforts to fight corruption can undermine the social contract: Lessons from a survey experiment in Nigeria

Anticorruption awareness raising efforts are designed to encourage citizens to resist and report corruption but have been found to either not work or have unwanted effects– including increasing bribe payment. This paper represents the first test of whether these efforts also undermine critical aspects of a society’s social contract, namely willingness to pay tax. Using a household level survey experiment in Lagos, Nigeria, we assess whether exposure to five messages about (anti)corruption influence citizens’ belief that they have a duty to pay taxes, or “tax morale”. Though they were different in tone and content, four of the five messages undermined tax morale. We argue that this is likely because anti-corruption messages raise awareness of corruption risks, and hence concerns that taxes will be wasted. In turn, this highlights a new potential unintended and unwanted consequence of policy interventions that focus on raising awareness of government failings.

旨在提升公民反腐意识的宣传举措，初衷是鼓励民众抵制并举报腐败行为，但现有研究表明此类举措要么未能达到预期效果，反而产生意外负面效应——其中就包括助长贿赂行为。本研究首次检验了此类反腐宣传举措是否还会侵蚀社会契约的关键维度，即公民的纳税意愿。依托尼日利亚拉各斯市开展的家庭层面调查实验，本研究考察了接触五种（反）腐败宣传信息后，民众是否会改变其“依法纳税是公民义务”的信念，即纳税士气（tax morale）。尽管这五种宣传信息在语气与内容上各不相同，但其中四种均削弱了民众的纳税士气。本研究认为，这一结果的潜在成因在于：反腐宣传信息提升了民众对腐败风险的认知，进而引发了“税款可能被浪费”的担忧。这一发现进而揭示了一类新的潜在意外负面效应：聚焦揭露政府治理缺陷的宣传类政策干预措施，可能会产生此类始料未及的负面影响。