Staff rotation as an anti-corruption policy: an experimental study

Within the German federal government regular staff rotation is a precautionary measure against corruption in public administration. To study the effect of this policy, an experiment was conducted where pairs of potential bribers and public officials were randomly re-matched in every round. The outcome is compared to the case where the identity of the pairs interacting remained fixed. The conclusion is that rotation of interacting pairs significantly reduces the levels of bribes as well as the frequency of inefficient decisions due to bribery.