The authors note that traditional anticorruption approaches, based on legal and institutional reforms, increased oversight, and sanctions, do not always deliver the expected results. One reason is that they often fail to adequately account for the psychological and social factors influencing the behavior of public officials, citizens, and private sector actors.

In particular, corrupt behavior can be driven by cognitive biases, underestimation of the risk of punishment, habitual patterns of behavior, social pressures, and perceptions of how widespread corruption is. For example, the belief that «everyone pays bribes» can sustain corrupt practices even among individuals who personally disapprove of them.

The report proposes analyzing the behavioral drivers of corruption at three interconnected levels:

• individual level – motivation, beliefs, and risk perception;
• group level – social norms, reciprocity, and peer influence;
• institutional level – administrative complexity, discretion, and accountability mechanisms.

The authors also emphasize the need to consider both sides of corrupt exchanges. While public officials may engage in corruption because of established workplace norms and perceptions that the risk of punishment is low, citizens and businesses may agree to make informal payments out of fear, administrative difficulties, or a perceived lack of alternatives.

To identify the specific drivers of corrupt behavior, the authors recommend using behavioral diagnostics. This involves defining the specific behaviors that contribute to corruption, investigating the factors influencing them, mapping decision-making processes, and identifying situations in which opportunities for abuse arise. Methods may include surveys, interviews, focus group discussions, administrative data analysis, and other research tools.

The findings are then used to develop hypotheses about the drivers of corruption and design targeted interventions. The authors stress the importance of testing these hypotheses and evaluating the effectiveness of proposed solutions, taking into account the specific institutional and social context.

The report examines four areas of anticorruption efforts whose effectiveness can be enhanced by integrating behavioral insights:

• accountability and monitoring – increasing the perceived probability of detection through unpredictable audits, timely disclosure of information, and credible consequences for corrupt behavior;
• digital solutions and process simplification – reducing face-to-face interactions between citizens and public officials, automating administrative processes, and lowering the burden of compliance;
• incentives – using monetary and nonmonetary rewards to encourage ethical behavior while accounting for the risks of unintended incentives;
• social norms and ethics training – fostering integrity, strengthening professional ethics, promoting positive role models, and introducing experiential training programs.

The report also presents examples of anticorruption interventions and evaluates their effectiveness.

For example, in Tajikistan, the introduction of electronic tax filing helped reduce direct interactions between businesses and tax officials. E-filing increased by 34 percentage points, while bribe payments among low-risk firms declined due to fewer opportunities for extortion.

At the same time, the authors highlight the potential unintended consequences of reforms. In Bangladesh, for instance, the introduction of a performance monitoring system for public officials based on application processing times reduced processing times by 13%, but did not lead to an overall reduction in bribery. Moreover, bribe payments among high-performing officials increased by 15%. This example demonstrates that improvements in administrative efficiency do not necessarily translate into reduced corruption.

Similar risks were identified in Pakistan, where introducing performance-based bonuses for tax officials to increase tax collection raised revenues but was also accompanied by an increase in informal payments demanded from taxpayers.

The report also pays particular attention to how gender norms and power relations shape corrupt behavior. The authors emphasize the importance of recognizing differences in the vulnerability of population groups, ensuring that corruption reporting channels are safe and accessible, and preventing digitalization from creating new barriers to public services.

According to the World Bank experts, behavioral insights should complement rather than replace legal and institutional anticorruption measures, helping to improve their effectiveness. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution: the effectiveness of specific interventions depends on the social and institutional context, while sustainable results require changes not only to formal procedures but also to established behavioral patterns and perceptions of the acceptability of corruption.