Summary of the General Discussion on “The Size and Costs of Bribes in Malaysia: An Analysis Based on Convicted Bribe Givers”

Most of the concerns raised during the general discussion were about data issues. Shigeyuki Abe raised the concern about the possible changes in cost and efficiency to catch bribery activities during the five-year period and questioned whether that can be dealt with in the study. M. Niaz Asadullah pointed out that people who have chosen to violate the law in the first place may be more prone than others to giving bribes once caught to get away from being punished by law. These people's intention to bribe may be stronger than those who have violated the law inadvertently. He suggests that the authors obtain some secondary proxies to differentiate these two kinds of bribe givers. Angsoka Paundralingga raised concerns about using the conviction rate of those being reported as a proxy for probability of a briber being caught in this study. To meet the purpose of the study, he suggested...