Are Public Sector Employees More Honest? Field Evidence From Forty Countries

Abstract

Are public sector workers more honest than their private sector counterparts? While conventional wisdom might suggest so, no direct evidence has been offered to address this question, as most public administration research has utilized indirect designs and measures. Furthermore, most studies on this topic have been conducted in a single country, thus limiting the ability to draw a generalizable conclusion. In this paper, we provide field evidence on the honesty of public and private sector workers, using data collected in 40 countries. Specifically, we analyze the data of a field experiment conducted by Cohn and colleagues (2019; N = 17,303), in order to compare the level of honesty of public and private employees across these countries. Overall, we find no significant difference between the honesty level of public and private sector workers; this is also the modal country level result. A comparative measure of corruption (Transparency International’s CPI) only partially accounts for cross-national variation in relative public sector honesty. The level of public sector honesty is mostly determined by social norms in each country. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for public administration literature.