严刑能遏制腐败吗?——以中国为例的博弈论分析

Do Severe Penalties Deter Corruption? A Game-Theoretic Analysis of the Chinese Case

尽管中国对腐败的惩处有诸如死刑之类的严刑,但腐败仍未得到有效遏制。本研究从博弈论的视角探讨了腐败未得到有效控制的原因。文章基于塞贝利斯(Tsebelis)关于犯罪与惩罚的模型构建了一个腐败—调查的博弈论模型,而后通过假定博弈双方的利益相关对此模型进行了拓展。考虑到官员们对反腐的态度不同,文章最后构建了一个不完全信息的静态博弈模型。借助于博弈论分析方法的独特优势,文章研究发现了影响腐败控制的三个因素:1.简单地加大处罚不仅未必能减少腐败反而会减少对腐败的调查;2.提高反腐人员的激励对遏制腐败很重要,比如提高他们在反腐工作中的经济和政治利益;3.同样重要的是,要有一支能积极主动反腐的官员队伍。

Severe punishments, including the death penalty, have not effectively deterred corruption in China. This research argues that deterrence of corruption has been ineffective from a game - theoretic perspective. I first form a corruption investigation game based on Tsebelis＇s model of crimes and sanctions. Next I extend the basic model by linking the two players＇ payoffs. Finally, I construct a static game of incomplete information and use it to consider different types of investigators. With the unique advantages of game theory, this research finds that to deter corruption, （ 1 ） simply increasing the penalty can counterintuitively decrease the frequency of investigation without decreasing the occurrence of corruption ; （2） it is important to increase incentives for the investigator, such as rewarding anticorruption monetarily or politically ; and （ 3 ） it is also important to have a sufficient proportion of officials who have an incentive to fight corruption.