Killias Corruption Protocol PDF

Protocol:
Administrative Reforms in the Public Sector

and their Impact on the level of Corruption: A
Systematic Review
Martin Killias, Giulia Mugellini, Giang Ly Isenring, Patrice
Villettaz
Submitted to the Coordinating Group of:

Crime and Justice
Education
Disability
International Development
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Other:
Plans to co-register:
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Date Submitted:
Date Revision Submitted:
Approval Date:
Publication Date: 04 January 2016
1 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

(1) BACKGROUND
1.1. The Problem, Condition or Issue
Corruption is a pervasive phenomenon and significant in both developed and developing

countries. As a complex social phenomenon, corruption deploys its characteristics under
various and extensive forms which make the definition of corruption particularly complex and
vast.
Literature on the definition of corruption is broad. The following paragraphs will provide the
readers with some commonly used definitions of corruption. However, this overview of
definitions is not intended to be comprehensive. As far as this systematic review will focus on
the administrative corruption, the readers will find below the major features of this form
of corruption rather than other types of corruption.
Corruption is commonly defined as the abuse or misuse of public office (by elected politician
or appointed civil servant) for private gain (Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development OECD 2008: 22; The World Bank 1997: 8; United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime UNODC 1999). The main offences constituting corrupt behaviour are bribery 1 ,
patronage and nepotism, theft of state assets or diversion of state revenues2, extortion (World
Bank, 1997). Corrupt behaviours are also identified as acts of bribery of domestic or foreign
public officials, trading in influence, embezzlement, misappropriation or other diversion of
property by a public official (OECD 2008: 23; OECD 2015: 28). To widen the notion of
corruption to individuals or private parties, we could also state that corruption is the misuse
of entrusted power for private gain.
Besides the specific types of offences characterizing corrupt behaviours, there is also the
distinction between “petty” and “grand” corruption. This distinction is focused on the
seriousness of the offence, on the amount of money involved and on the hierarchical level of
the public officials concerned. Indeed, “grand” corruption usually involves substantial
amounts of money and high-level public officials and politicians, while “petty” corruption
usually concerns smaller sums of money and typically more junior officials, civil servants
(UNODC 1999; The World Bank 1997; The World Bank 2003).
1“Public office is abused for private gain when an official accepts, solicits, or extorts a bribe. It is also abused
when private agents actively offer bribes to circumvent public policies and processes for competitive advantage
and profit” (The World Bank 1997: 8)
2“Public office can also be abused for personal benefit even if no bribery occurs, through patronage and
nepotism, the theft of state assets, or the diversion of state revenues.” (The World Bank 1997: 8-9)

Another distinction commonly mentioned in the literature is the one between public and
private corruption. As its name indicates, public corruption concerns the misuse of public
office for private gain while private corruption happens between individuals operating in the
private sector (World Bank 2003: 3).
A third distinction is often made between administrative and political corruption (Khan 2004;
Pope 2000; Riccardi & Sarno 2013). This distinction is more related to the types of
operations/processes influenced by the corrupt behaviour and to the types of public officials
involved. Administrative corruption refers to the state administration at central and local level
(OECD 2015: 19) and involves civil servants. It mainly alters the implementation of policies
(rather than their formulation) and service delivery (Gould 1991; Huberts 1998: 211; OECD
2015: 29; Riccardi & Sarno 2013). Political corruption refers to act at the political level, often
with high-level civil servants involved. It influences the formulation of laws, regulations and
policies and concerns elected public officials (Kramer 1997; OECD 2015: 28; The World Bank
2003: 6).
The categories mentioned above are not mutual exclusive and their meaning often overlaps.
For example, the difference between “grand” and “petty” corruption is often related to the
difference between “political” and “administrative” corruption (Blundo & al. 2006).
Administrative corruption: the problem of this review
The problem this review will address is administrative corruption in the public sector.
This systematic review will refer to the administrative corruption in the public sector as the
abuse of public office or public role for private gain at the implementation end of public
policies or procedures. By public office, we refer to people belonging to any kind of public
institutions (e.g. schools, hospitals) in addition to governmental ones, with the exclusion of
politicians.
This review will consider the following main corrupt acts: bribery of public officials;
embezzlement; misappropriation or other diversion of property by a public official (theft of
state assets or diversion of state revenues), nepotism, as well as a range of corrupt behaviors
such as trading in influence, abuse of function, illicit enrichment. Some corruption-related
concepts will also be included in the review such as fraud and extortion. Fraud is a broader
legal and popular term that covers both bribery and embezzlement. Extortion is a form of
corruption often seen in cases when state officials return preferential business opportunities
and freedom from taxation. According to OECD (2011), asking for a bribe becomes extortion
“when this demand is accompanied by threats that endanger the personal integrity or the life
of the private actors involved."

Furthermore, absenteeism as a serious form of corruption in specific sectors, such as
education and health (Transparency International 2013) will also be included in this review.
Indeed, “stealing time” (e.g. not show up to work) while performing a public office is
considered a serious form of diversion or theft of state assets (time in this case) (Hanna 2011:
8).
Although administrative corruption is often defined and studied together and as opposed to
political corruption, this systematic review will exclude political corruption. We deliberately
separate politics from administration. Political corruption affects the formulation of policies,
it involves political decision-makers and happens when politicians who are entitled to make
the laws (the rulers) are themselves corrupt. In political corruption, laws and regulations are
abused and even tailored to fit the interest of the rulers. Political corruption takes place at the
high levels of the political system and it has political repercussions (Amundsen, 1999).
Administrative corruption occurs at any level of authority in the public administration and
affects the implementation of policies. The review will not examine the acts of political
corruption mainly because we believe that the mechanisms and the functioning of political
corruption (i.e. manipulations of rules of voting systems) are significantly different and more
complex that those related to administrative corruption. We thus believe that political
corruption would need an ad-hoc separate review.
Anti-corruption interventions/reforms implemented at the administrative

level: the scope of this review
The aim of this systematic review is to identify the impact of the existing interventions or
reforms implemented at the administrative level in order to curb the types of
administrative corruption mentioned above.
The majority of administrative interventions and reforms in the public sector have been
developed to curb public corruption at the state administration level (World Bank 1997,
USAID 2009: 4, European Commission 2014b). Several anti-corruption programs have been,
indeed, developed both at the domestic and international level. In the words of Gounev (2012)
“significant funds are being allocated by the EU cohesion policy to the strengthening of
administrative capacity at all levels, including regionally, especially in less developed
regions and newer EU Member States. The added administrative efficiency that should result
will reduce actual levels of corruption and consequently the pressure on personnel to become
corrupt. Once administrative efficiency has been improved, additional specific anti-
corruption measures can be added.”
The issue so far has been that, in spite of the large amount of anti-corruption programs
implemented (cfr. European Commission 2014b), the literature bringing them into line is most
of the times an overview and compilations of general findings, leading to conclusions which

might be too general and vague to inspire policy-makers. In addition, evaluations are more
easily available on outcomes of higher sanctions and intensified controls, than on
administrative reforms which try to reduce the “market” for corruption by making public
bureaucracies more efficient and “user-friendly”. Though there has been a noticeable trend of
developing significant anti-corruption programs helping to understand the causes and capture
the indicators of corruption, there has been little systematic research into the impact of these
anti-corruption efforts in reducing corruption. As a consequence, there has been a serious lack
of comprehensive assessment of the implementation and the efficiency of anti-corruption
measures in different settings.
Given the need for such evaluation, we propose a systematic review of all studies that have
examined administrative anti-corruption reforms as well as their effects on the level of
corruption. As formulated by Johnsøn & Søreide (2013: 1), “producing evidence that anti-
corruption interventions have an impact in reducing corruption is a relatively new area for
research and evaluation”. This is the contribution this systematic review is aiming at.
Why the focus on administrative corruption and why it is a target for

administrative anti-corruption interventions/reforms?
In order to keep the systematic review manageable, it only covers administrative corruption.
Along with this primary reason, the focus on administrative corruption and the administrative
anti-corruption reforms is explained as follows:
(1) The importance of the parties involved in administrative corruption
The reason we focus on the public sector corruption is that the state plays a decisive role
and it is reflected in most definitions of corruption. Nevertheless, administrative
corruption also exists within and between private businesses, within non-governmental
organizations, and between individuals in their personal dealings. However, for this
review, when the act of corruption does not imply or emphasize a state-relationship, it will
be excluded from the review. The term “public sector” used for the review does not exclude
the private sector or private companies which might be equally corruptible with serious
public flow-on effect. For this review, we take into consideration the
counterparts/protagonists to the corrupt officials who can be any non-governmental, non-
public individual, or the general public. In sum, acts of corruption with no state
components or public office involvements will be excluded from the review.
This leads us to another significant reason to focus on administration corruption. As a

matter of fact, whenever administrative corruption happens, it does involve numerous
protagonists of the society, namely bureaucratic elites, public officials and interested
individuals or parties. Administrative corruption involves appointed bureaucrats and
public administration staff at the central or subnational levels. As advanced by Johnston

(2011), administrative corruption implies that within public bureaucracies, abuse of roles,
powers or resources have been found and it has been initiated by staff officials, their
superiors or the agency clients. Although anchored in large and centralized governments,
protagonists of administrative corruption might also be individuals or institutions from
elsewhere in the public sector (Johnston, 2011).
(2) The diversity of types of acts/offences of administrative corruption
The second reason of this focus is mostly related to the vast selection of malfeasant acts
and behaviors emanated from administrative corruption.
The most common act of administrative corruption is, according to Taslim (1994),
pecuniary bribes. However, bribes are not the only forms of administrative corruption. In
a study of Gounev (2012), administrative corruption consists of acts of manipulation of
public tenders, kickbacks from providers, nepotism-based recruitment and promotions.
In the interaction with private agents, administrative corrupt acts can be seen in the
requests of extra payment or speed money for providing government services or to
expedite some bureaucratic procedures. Bribes violating rules and regulations, bribes or
kickbacks in order to obtain positions or to secure promotions, or mutual exchanges of
favors within the public bureaucracy can also be part of administrative corrupt behaviors
(Fjeldstad & Isaksen, 2008: pp. 5-6).
When small payments are involved, administrative corrupt acts can be assimilated to petty
corruption although in some specific cases and in aggregate the sums may become
significant (Blundo & al. 2006).
It also happens that, in order to provide advantages to either state or non-state actors, an
intentional imposition of distortions in the prescribed implementation of existing laws,
rules and regulations has been deployed. For instance an administrative corrupt act
includes bribes to an official inspector to overlook minor (or possibly major) offences of
existing regulations, or bribes to gain licenses, to smooth customs procedures, or to win
public procurement contracts (World Bank, 2000).
Administrative corrupt acts also include the actions of “offering”, “promising” and a bribe
and not only the act of “giving” a bribe. However, our review will consider only the act of
“giving of a bribe”, which occurs when the briber actually transfers the undue advantage
and implies an agreement between the briber and the official. As offering and promising
bribes have not been established as complete offences (OECD 2008, p. 26), we have
decided to exclude these acts from this review.

1.2. Why it is Important to do the Review
Considering that “the absence of rules facilitates the process of corruption as much as the
presence of cumbersome or excessive rules does” (Bank's General Counsel, Ibrahim Shihata),
an evaluation of what works and what does not is of extreme importance to identify the most
parsimonious and effective “model” to curb corruption issues.
Despite a large amount of literature on anti-corruption, there are few systematic reviews
focusing on anti-corruption reforms and even fewer assessing the issues of effectiveness and
impact. There is thus a need for more comprehensive assessments of the implementation and
the efficiency of anti-corruption measures in different settings.
Therefore, the main objective of this review is to systematically identify any evidence and
evaluation of the effectiveness of different anti-corruption reforms at the administrative level.
Anti-corruption policies or interventions cannot operate successfully without a concrete
assessment of their impact on the level of corruption. Determining the effects of anti-
corruption interventions is integral to the success of the eradication of corruption. It is
necessary to know exactly what has worked, what has been useful so far, what has not worked
and how to do better in the fight against corruption. Consequently, there are not many ways
to acquire such knowledge except from conducting a systematic review of anti-corruption
measures and their effectiveness.
Our systematic review will allow identifying studies presenting anti-corruption reforms and
interventions and comprehensive assessing the outcomes of these interventions.
The proposed research has a main impact for the criminological and criminal law field, but
furthermore, as the subject of corruption and anti-corruption policies and reforms crosses
many other disciplinary boundaries, it also constitutes an opportunity to consider all studies
belonging to different disciplines such as political sciences, economic, business management,
etc. In addition, our review will allow learning where empirical studies are concentrated (for
instance what kinds of interventions and outcomes). Finally, given the lack of assessments of
this sort at the international level, such review will be of high relevance to the international
literature on the theme of administrative anti-corruption strategies.
One major contribution to the subject is the systematic review of Hanna & al. (2011) on “The
effectiveness of anti-corruption policy”. This review demonstrates that the major shortcoming
of existing research on the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures is related to the fact that
they mainly focus on the incentives and advantages of not engaging in corrupt practices, but
there remains a dearth of knowledge in relation to the assessment of administrative reforms
adopted to reduce the “need” (or the “market”) for corrupt behavior.

The review of Hanna focuses on developing countries, on two main types of interventions (i.e.
monitoring and incentives mechanism, and changing the rules of the system) and it uses a
textual narrative synthesis approach. Hanna stated that there would have been the need to
better understand the long-term effects of anti-corruption strategies focused on the changes
of the rules and on those more oriented to monitoring and incentives interventions (Hanna
2011: 1).
Our review will differentiate from the Hanna’s one by (1) considering both developing and
developed countries (classified in low, middle and high income countries according to the
World Bank and OECD definitions), (2) including a wider range of interventions and not only
“monitoring and incentives programs” or “interventions changing the underlying rules of the
system”, (3) focusing on both micro and macro level studies and (4) by using meta-analysis
instead of textual narrative review. Moreover, this review aims at raising the attention on the
importance of conducting cost-benefit analysis to evaluate interventions (Hanna 2011: 6). This
method has long provided useful policy guidance in many sectors but it is still rarely applied
to the evaluation of anti-corruption interventions (Johnson 2014: 1). Through the
identification and analysis of studies based on this method, this review can help to promoting
its appropriate and informed use.
As far as the features and mechanism for corruption change quickly, as well as the measures
for countering this issue, this systematic review will also serve as an update to the results of
the previous studies.
To conclude, this proposal seeks to answer to the key question: “What is the impact of
administrative interventions and reforms undertaken in the public sector on the
level of administrative corruption, across developed and developing countries?”
We expect to discover through this systematic review which administrative
measures/policies/reforms in the public sector are potentially significant for fighting
corruption, and which ones could be an issue. By compiling and studying the effects of the
anti-corruption interventions in different contexts, we aim to identify which interventions
work and which do not work in the fight against corruption.

1.3. The Intervention
This systematic review focuses on interventions which represent different types of

administrative reforms mainly focused on curbing corruption.
Administrative reforms have been defined as changes or transformations

developed at the state administration at central and local level under a
systematized and well-directed process. Reform is change or adjustment that is well-
studied and planned with a clear objective of improving the current state of the elements part
of a system (Caiden 1969).
Existing classifications of potential administrative anti-corruption reforms are usually focused

on the schools of thought underneath them, on the types of system used to implement them,
on the process/area they are addressed to.
For example, McCusker (2006) emphasizes three key schools of thought on corruption
prevention and strategies:
(1) Interventionism – the relevant authorities wait for the corrupt action to take place and then
intervene to capture and punish the wrongdoer. This school of thought embodies principles of
retribution, rehabilitation and deterrence. However, it overlooks several problems: the harm
has already occurred and cannot be undone; the majority of corruption cases are unreported;
and no attention is paid to improving supervision to deter corrupt actions in the first place.
(2) Managerialism – the individuals or agencies seeking to engage in corrupt behavior can be
prevented from doing so by establishing appropriate systems, procedures and protocols.
Managerialism advocates the reduction or suppression of opportunities benefiting the
individuals engaging in corruption. However, the limitation of this school resides in the fact
that individuals do not necessarily operate according to the predetermined principles of
managerialism. This often leads to inflation of rules and elimination of discretion that prevents
practical, common-sense solutions.
(3) Organizational integrity – a norm of ethical behavior related to corruption control strategies
and ethical standards needs to be created within an organization’s operational system. This
school supposes that the mechanism of corrupt behavior and deviance stems from the
organization rather than the individuals. Therefore, in order to reach a successful level of
reducing corruption, targeting the organizational context in which individuals operate is
necessary.
Caiden (1969) categorizes the administrative reforms into four types (1) reforms imposed
through political changes, (2) reforms to remedy organizational rigidity, (3) reforms through
the legal system and (4) reforms through changes in attitude.

Even though there is a degree of disparity between the desire to eliminate corruption and the
delivery of anti-corruption strategies, there are a number of important pragmatic and
innovative mechanisms in anti-corruption efforts. Anti-corruption strategies should be
developed in a way that incorporates policies in relation to the areas and sectors vulnerable to
corruption.
With this regards, Huberts (1998) has distinguished six main anti-corruption strategies:
(1) economic – focused on the reduction of financial and economic stimuli for corruption
(e.g. paying higher salaries to civil servants to reduce vulnerability or temptation to
bribes);
(2) educational – focused on the change of attitudes and values of the population and civil
servants (e.g. through training and educational campaigns; increasing public
exposure; changing family attitudes population; influencing attitude of public
servants; etc.);
(3) cultural – focused on the improvement of the ethical standards and examples given by
management and on the development of ethical code of conduct for civil servants, as
well as on the enhancement of protection for whistle blowers;
(4) organizational or bureaucratic – focused on the improvement of internal control

systems and supervision (e.g. auditing systems), decentralization, selection of
personnel and rotation of personnel; but also technological improvement helping the
organizational system (e.g. conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs), which can help
reducing the possibility for corruption to happen.
(5) political – focused on the improvement of the example given by politicians (e.g. more
commitment by politicians to combat corruption), on an increased transparency in the
monitoring of party finances and on a more rigorous separation of public powers (these
last two examples are not included in this review);
(6) judicial or repressive measures – focused on the implementation of harsher penalties

for corrupt practices but also on the creation of independent anti-corruption agencies.
Huberts’ (1998) classification is more focused on the specific content and characteristics of
different anti-corruption reforms rather than on the school of thought underneath them (such
as McCusker’s classification) or on the system used to develop them (such as Caiden’s
classification). Moreover, Huberts’ classification is based on the views of 257 experts from 49
countries with very different political, economic and societal conditions. Due to its
international orientation and to its more practical implications, Huberts’ classification of anti-
corruption reforms better serves the purpose of this review.

Six main types of anti-corruption reforms will, therefore, be considered for the purposes of
this review: (1) economic; (2) educational; (3) cultural; (4) organization or bureaucratic; (5)
political; (6) judicial or repressive measures.
Some examples are provided in the following chapter.
Examples of the types of possible interventions
Many important organizations and actors are behind the administrative anti-corruption
reforms. Interventions seeking to reduce the discretionary power and monopoly of the power
by the government officials, improvement of law enforcement, civil service reform, increase of
transparency and improvement of citizen participation (UNDP, 1997). A genuine reform of
bureaucracy by reducing the incentives and opportunities of corruption is one of the anti-
corruption interventions proposed by UNDP.
Efforts and reforms of anti-corruption are deployed in all sectors of education, environment,
energy, health, information technology and transport (USAID, 2011). In 2007, for instance, a
program called “program of collective action” comprising the directions and principles to
counter corruption was developed by OECD.
One of the anti-corruption reforms suggested by Schleifer and Vishny (1993; 610) is to produce
competition between bureaucrats in the provision of government goods, which will drive
bribes down to zero. This arrangement has been introduced in many agencies of the US
government, in particular the passport office. It seems that creating competition in the
provision of government goods might increase theft from the government but at the same time
reduces bribes.
Decentralization is another example of anti-corruption reforms. When applying a

decentralization policy, the responsibility for the implementation of a given policy passes from
a higher level of government to a lower one (Hanna 2011: 9).
The use of technology and electronic payments can help to bypass various lengthy bureaucratic
procedures and to avoid direct contact with civil servants. This can reduce the opportunity for
bribes (Hanna 2011).
In the case of Italy, the new anticorruption law ratified in November 2012 was specifically
addressed to the reduction of administrative corruption through the increase of transparency
and dissemination of information by public administration. Within the three-year national
anti-corruption and integrity action plan addressed to all administration bodies, the following
main areas of administrative anti-corruption reforms have been considered for intervention:
1. Reduce the likelihood of corruption

2. Increase the detection of corruption cases
3. Create a corruption-proofed environment
The following are some examples of practical interventions which have been developed within
each of these areas:
1. Public e-Procurement to manage public bid processes online and increase

transparency (e.g. Acquistiinretepa.it) and shifts of management staff.
2. Whistleblowers’ protection through the development of informatics systems within

public administration for reporting any suspected operation online. This provision is
applicable to government employees who report misbehaviors under the condition that
they do not commit libel of defamation or infringe on anybody’s privacy (European
Commission 2014a, p. 4). The identity of whistleblowers cannot be disclosed without
their consent.
3. Code of ethics for the public administration (European Commission 2014a, p. 9).
The types of interventions vary also on the basis of the country where they are developed. For
example, Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) are considered among the few
methods having a positive impact on corruption in service delivery in developing countries
with a weak system of governance (Sundet 2007, p. 2). The application of PETS in Uganda, for
example, shows that the flow of funds improved dramatically, from 13 percent on average
reaching schools in 1991-95 to around 80 percent in early 2001 (Reinikka and Svensson 2003).
However, this method was not successful in other countries with similar characteristics (e.g.
in Tanzania) (Sundet 2007).

1.4. How the Intervention Might Work
According to Johnsøn and Søreide (2013: 1-2), even if in the last two decades a substantial
amount of empirical work has been done in order to understand the effects of anti-corruption
interventions in different countries, “producing evidence that these interventions had any
impact in reducing corruption is still a relatively new area for research and evaluation”. Anti-
corruption practitioners are, indeed, still trying to understand how to best translate principles
such as sanctions, control, transparency, and accountability into reforms and programs
against corruption (Ibidem).
In this sense, our study offers a review as a bridge between theory and literature of anti-
corruption strategies/reforms on the one hand and their empirical effectiveness on the other.
The universe of anti-corruption interventions and reforms is vast (see section 1.3 of this
protocol) and, depending on the types of strategy and approach and on the type of actors
involved and the environment where they have been developed, these interventions might
work in different ways.
As mentioned above, as far as a standardized approach in this regard is still missing, the
identification and description of how the different anti-corruption interventions might work,
is among the main aims of our study and will be carefully analyzed during the development of
this review.
However, a preliminary and general approach, based on the anti-corruption interventions’

classification used in our study (see Huberts 1998 and McCusker 2006), can be described as
follows (see Fig.1 below).

Fig. 1 – Example of the practical functioning of anti-
corruption interventions in the administrative field.
• Administrative corruption (e.g. weak

Problem and unefficient public service delivery
due to corruption among civil
servants/public officials)
• Economic (e.g. higher salaries to civil servants/public officials)

• Educational (e.g. specific anti-corruption trainings)
• Public culture (e.g. code of ethics for civil servants/public officials)
Interventions • Organisational/bureaucratic (e.g. rotation of personnel, internal control and supervision,
stronger selection of public personnel)
• Political (e.g. Good example given by management at the top)
• Repressive/Judicial (e.g. more severe penal sanctions)
• Civil servants earn more

• Civil servants are more trained on
how to recognize and face
Output corruption
• Civil servants are more aware
about the risks of corrupt
behaviours
• More qualified staff

• More efficient public service delivery
Outcome • Less advantages from corruption
• More risks from corruption
• Reduced level of administrative

corruption
Impact • Increased citizens satisfaction
towards public services 'delivery

A more detailed and illustrative example of how a specific anti-corruption reform might work
is provided by Johnsøn and Søreide (2013: 6) (see figure 2 below).
Fig. 2 – Example of the practical functioning of anti-corruption interventions. Source:

Johnsøn and Søreide (2013: 6)
The authors focus on the process of a program aimed at reducing corruption in customs by
offering a reward to businesses who report they have paid a bribe. For each step of the process,
specific measurable indicators are also provided to show how the impact of this intervention
might be empirically measured. However, Johnsøn and Søreide (2013) also highlight that it is
not always easy to identify and evaluate the working process of a specific intervention, as it
might be difficult to recognize preconditions and intervening variables. The idea is, therefore,
to go beyond the log-frame approach and to also consider the socioeconomic and political
context for the intervention in order to understand how it worked, and thus properly assess
its effects. This is how our study is going to proceed.

(2) OBJECTIVES
This systematic review aims to identify and synthetize published and unpublished studies
providing empirical evidence on the effects of administrative reforms, developed in the public
sector, to counter administrative corruption.
The main objectives of this systematic review are the following:
1. To identify which types of reforms (or interventions) have a deterrent effect on the level
of administrative corruption across developing and developed countries and to
measure the effectiveness of these reforms.
2. To examine whether different types of interventions have different effects on the level
of corruption, and how these effects vary across the types of interventions.
3. To assess whether and how the effects of the interventions vary across developed and
developing countries.
4. To determine whether and how the effects of the interventions vary by unit of analysis
(e.g. government agencies vs civil servants) and by type of offence (e.g. bribery vs
misappropriation of public assets; nepotism vs extortion).
From the formulated objectives specific research questions emerge accordingly:
1. Which types of interventions (among the six identified by this review) significantly
reduce the risk of administrative corruption in the public sector?
2. Do different types of interventions have different effects on corruption?
3. Do the effect of a specific intervention change across developed and developing

countries? And if yes, to which extent does it change?
4. Do the effect of the interventions change by unit of analysis? And by type of offence?
How does it change? And if yes, to which extent does it change?
While pursuing the above-mentioned objectives, this project will also contribute in better
understanding the characteristics of administrative corruption and in shaping its peculiarities
across different contexts (developed and developing countries).

(3) METHODOLOGY
This systematic review aims at providing quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of

administrative anti-corruption strategies in the public sector.
In order to do so, it will synthetize evidence from quantitative studies, following Campbell and
Cochrane Collaboration approaches to systematic reviewing (Higgins & Green, 2011; Petticrew
& Roberst, 2006; Clarke & Oxman, 2000). Studies must be primary studies published or
unpublished.
Studies written in or translated into English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and
Vietnamese will be included in the review, as far as the project’s team include persons who are
fluent in these languages.
3.1. Criteria for including studies in the review
3.1.1. Type of study designs
Studies eligible for inclusion in this review must quantitatively assess the effects of the
administrative reforms on the level of corruption in a given context. The included studies have
to quantitatively measure the intervention either as a dichotomous, ordinal or scaled variable.
To be included in this review, studies should ideally use randomised controlled trials (RCT’s),
or any quasi-experimental method as study design. Therefore, we will include in this review
RCTs, cluster RCTs, quasi-RCTs, pretest-posttest two groups studies (with a non-equivalent
control group) and interrupted time series studies. The latter must have a clearly identifiable
time point at which the intervention occurred and must include information for at least three
time points before and after the intervention. Given the limited number of studies in this field
of research using any control groups, we will include also studies in which neither a control
group nor a random assignment is present, such as pretest-posttest one group studies and
cross-sectional studies like surveys (suchas the study of Yongqiang, 2011).
Both the definition of corruption and the criteria of inclusion are deliberately broad because
we are concerned about the limited number of possibly eligible studies. If a reasonable number
of studies (more than twenty) can be identified and located we shall consider restricting the
review to those studies meeting the highest methodological standards. At the documentary
stage, however, it seems safer to include as many studies as possible.
Anyway, we will include only those studies which clearly describe their research design and
clearly report the change in the level of administrative corruption due to a specific
intervention.

3.1.2. Types of participants
The review will include studies developed in low, middle and high income countries (defined
according to the World Bank classification method). For studies to be included they will need
to collect and report on data at an individual or aggregated level.
If the outcomes of interest are measured at an aggregate level, the units of analysis will be any
geographic place (e.g. community, city, province, state, region, or country) and/or
governmental agencies, public and private companies within a developed or developing
country. If the outcomes of interest are measured at an individual level, the unit of analysis
will be the individual (e.g. civil servants, representatives of governmental agencies, public and
private companies).
In particular, the review will include studies focusing on the following units of analysis:
 Geographical areas (countries, regions, provinces, local municipalities),
 Government agencies,
 Public companies,
 Private companies (e.g. surveys asking whether they have ever been requested to pay a
bribe to public officials),
 Civil servants.
The type of unit of analysis depends on the different studies’ sources of data. For example,
studies considering the level of corruption as measured by administrative statistics, which
have specific geographical areas as unit of analysis, will consider as population a number of
provinces, local municipalities, or countries. On the other side, studies analyzing corruption
as measured by population surveys or self-report studies, will consider a population of
individuals or companies, which are the unit of analysis of such investigations.
The above-mentioned units of analysis will be analyzed separately, in order to highlight how
the impact of administrative measures on corruption differs across them.
3.1.3. Types of interventions
The types of interventions of this review, or the independent variables, are the
administrative anti-corruption reforms.

As mentioned in Chapter “Background”, Section 1.1, “Administrative corruption: the problem
of the review”, administrative corruption in this review is intended as “the abuse or misuse of
public office for private gain” and includes acts of bribery, fraud, extortion, embezzlement,
misappropriation or other diversion of property by a public official, theft of state assets or
diversion of state revenues, absenteeism, extortion, nepotism. Therefore, anti-corruption
interventions or reforms which are not specifically meant to curb or prevent these
administrative corrupt acts will be excluded from this review.
This systematic review will include administrative anti-corruption reforms without any
geographic and temporal limitations. The study of Hanna (2011: p. 17) demonstrated that
temporal exclusion criteria do not have much impact on the review’s findings because the
study of anti-corruption strategies has only taken off in recent years.
Furthermore, the administrative anti-corruption reforms considered for the review need to
concern reforms belonging to at least one of the following six main categories (see definitions
under section 1.3):
1. Economic
2. Educational
3. Cultural
4. Organisational or bureaucratic
5. Political
6. Judicial or repressive measures
Studies included in this review should clearly distinguish the types and characteristics of the
interventions (administrative reforms) according to the above-mentioned criteria.
The intervention has to be quantitatively measured. In particular, it could be measured either

as a dichotomous variable (e.g. presence / absence of a specific legislative reforms), ordinal
variable (e.g. long-term implementation of a specific legislative reform / medium-term
implementation / short-term implementation), or as a scaled variable (e.g. increased amount
of civil servants’ salaries).

3.1.4. Types of outcome measures
This review will include studies focused on interventions which have direct effects
on the level of administrative corruption, and which produce outcomes directly
related to our definition of administrative corruption (mentioned in Section 1.1,
p. 5)3. We are aware that, besides more direct impacts (such as the reduction in the level of
specific forms of corruption), interventions might also have indirect effects such as improved
public integrity, improved quality or quantity of specific public services (Bjorkmann and
Svensson 2009). Usually the latter are a consequence of the former and they are identifiable
only in the long-term period. It can also happen that interventions originally addressed to the
improvement of a specific public service, had an impact also on the level of corruption.
Furthermore, we understand that the outcome of specific anti-corruption reforms might have
a wider positive displacement than simply reduce the level of corruption. However, the
purpose of our review is to mainly focus on interventions with direct effects on the level
of administrative corruption. Such decision will help us not to get lost in other types of
outcome indicators, such as public service quality or access to public service. Nevertheless, to
not deny the relevance of these further outcomes, we would mention and classify them within
the review when it clearly appears they are direct consequences of the selected interventions.
Therefore, the type of outcome or the dependent variable of this review is the level of
administrative corruption4.
The dependent variable should be measured quantitatively. It means that the

assessment of the outcomes of the interventions (i.e. levels of corruption before and after the
intervention) should be quantitatively measured. The source of quantitative data to measure
the level of administrative corruption could be:
 criminal justice statistics, i.e. number of cases of corruption reported to the police and
recorded by the police in a given context, the number of cases of corruption prosecuted.
 surveys’ data of the general population or of particularly knowledgeable groups (such

as civil servants) that have assessed experience with corruption,
3 This review will consider the following main corrupt acts: bribery of public officials; embezzlement;
misappropriation or other diversion of property by a public official (theft of state assets or diversion of state
revenues), nepotism, as well as a range of corrupt behaviors such as trading in influence, abuse of function, illicit
enrichment. Some corruption-related concepts will also be included in the review such as fraud and extortion.
Fraud is a broader legal and popular term that covers both bribery and embezzlement. Extortion is a form of
corruption often seen in cases when state officials return preferential business opportunities and freedom from
taxation.
4 Ibidem.

 and/or any other quantitative indicator on the experience and perception of corruption
(e.g. direct observations, self-report studies, etc.).
Studies including at least one of the above-mentioned measures of corruption will be included
in the systematic review.
3.1.5. Exclusion criteria
As articulated in Section 1.1., studies focused on political corruption are excluded from the
review.
Furthermore, as mentioned in Section 1.1 and in Section 3.1.2., studies which do not examine
administrative corruption offences and reforms with the involvement of at least one party as
the state or public office are excluded from the review (private on private corruption).
Studies not using a quantitative method of assessment of the outcome will be excluded (see
below for further details).
Qualitative and purely descriptive studies on anti-corruption strategies, as well as those

aiming at testing the causes and consequences of corruption are excluded from this review.
Indeed, even if these investigations may be interesting to understand the origins of corruption
and their interrelation with the social and economic environment of a given country, they will
not be included in this review because they do not measure the effects of anti-corruption
reforms.
3.1.6. Examples of studies eligible for inclusion
On the basis of the abovementioned criteria, this section provides some examples of studies
eligible for inclusion in this review.
1. Treisman, D. (2000). Decentralization and the quality of government.
This study statistically demonstrates how the degree of political decentralization in a country
can affect the quality of its government and the level of perceived corruption. The analyses of
the data on up to 154 countries suggest that states which have more tiers of government tend
to have higher perceived corruption.
2. Steves, F. and Rousso, A. (2003). Anti-corruption programmes in post-communist

transition countries and changes in the business environment, 1999-2002. European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development Working Paper No. 85.
Using the results of a large survey of firms across 24 post-communist transition countries, this
paper shows that omnibus anti-corruption programmes and membership in international

anti-corruption conventions have not led to reductions in the level of either administrative
corruption or state capture, between 1999 and 2002. Moreover, it finds out that the
implementation of anti-corruption programmes is positively correlated with the perception of
corruption.
3. Olken, B., A. (2005). Monitoring corruption: evidence from a field experiment in Indonesia.
Working paper 11753. National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge, MA.
This study provides an example of ex-post cost-benefit analysis. The study quantifies in
monetary terms both the costs and the benefits of an anti-corruption intervention, after its
implementation. In particular, the author of this paper uses a randomized filed experiment to
examine different approaches to reducing corruption across 600 Indonesian village road
projects. He demonstrates that traditional top-down monitor can reduce corruption. In
particular, he finds out that “announcing an increased probability of government audit, from
a baseline of 4% to 100% reduced the missing expenditures (measured as discrepancies
between official project costs and an independent engineer’s estimate of costs) by about 8
percentage points”. On the other side he discovers that “increasing ‘grass-roots’ participation
in the monitoring process only reduced missing wages, with no effects on missing material
expenditure”. Overall, the net social benefits of this type of intervention were US$250 per
village, 150% more than the costs of the intervention (Johnson 2014: 6).
4. Yongqiang, N. (2011). Government Intervention, Perceived Benefit, and Bribery of Firms

in Transitional China. Journal of Business Ethics (2011) 104:175-184. Springer.
This study interview 600 business graduates (EMBA and MBA), working in different Chinese
companies, in order to understand if there are any relationship between government
intervention (in the forms of licenses, quotas, permits, approvals, authorizations, franchise
assignments, etc.) and bribery/corruption, and if this relationship was somehow mediated by
the firm’s perceived benefit it can get from the corrupt practice. The results show that the
government intervention causes bribery/corruption indeed, but a firm’s perceived benefit fully
mediates this relationship.

3.2. Search Strategy
In order to minimize publication bias, both published and unpublished studies, from a broad
range of international and national sources, will be included in this review.
The team members will perform a literature search to obtain papers and studies written in
English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Vietnamese, including a quantitative
assessment of the effect of administrative anti-corruption reforms.
The literature search will be conducted within electronic databases, journals and websites.
In particular, among academic databases the review will focus on:
 Social Science Citation Indexes
 JSTOR, International Bibliography of Social Science
 Social Science Research Network
 Wiley Interscience
 EBSCO Business Source Premier
 EconLit
 Google Scholar
 Academic Search Premier (Ebsco)
 ProQuest (Political Science, CSA Illumina, Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS
Inernational))
 OVID (International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA))
With regards to academic journals, the search will be particularly focused on those presenting
an Economic and Development orientation, as well as a Sociological and Criminological
focus.
Databases including unpublished studies (grey literature), such as:
 Campbell Crime and Justice Group
 IDEAS (Internet Documents in Economics Access Service)
 NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research)

 Networked Digital Library of Theses
 Dissertation Index to Theses,
 DocTA (Doctoral Theses Archive)
 Proquest’s Digital Dissertation
 Rutgers Grey Literature Database
will also be investigated.
Online databases of key institutions, with more practitioner publications (rather than
academic), such as those of:
 the Global Policing Database
 the World Bank
 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
 the Inter-American Development Bank
 Regional development banks (African, Asian, etc.)
 Innovations for Poverty Actions
 Transparency International
 U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre
 Ernst and Young
 PricewaterhouseCoopers
 KPMG
will also be explored in order to collect relevant policy evaluations from a broad array of public,
private and no-profit institutions.
Online databases belonging to International and European organization such as:
 the United Nations
 the European Union (e.g. Group of States against Corruption (GRECO)

 Transcrime
will also be searched, as well as national anti-corruption authorities’ website, such as:
 Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs (SECO)
 Italian National Anticorruption Authority (ANAC )
In addition, a screening of the references of the identified studies will be performed, in order
to run a citation search using the abovementioned databases. Conference programs of key
institutions mentioned above will also be investigated.
In case some key information is missing in included studies, the authors will be contacted.
Authors of particularly relevant studies may also be contacted in order to obtain further
materials or sister articles and documents.
The literature search will be mainly based on the groups of keywords presented in table 1
below. These keywords will be also combined using the Boolean operators OR and AND and
they will be translated in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian and
Vietnamese.

Table 1- Groups of keywords used for the systematic review
Effects of anti-
Corruption Anti-corruption reform corruption Method
reform
corrupt* anti-corruption* reform* impact* quantitative*
administrative* anti- effect* statistical*
corruption* reform*
anti-corruption* approach* empirical*
bribery* anti-corruption* strategies* outcome* experimental*
favoritism* anti-corruption* interventions* result* quasi-
experimental*
nepotism* variable* economic*
embezzlement* administration* reform* effect* survey* econometric*
corrupt*
theft of state asset* grass-roots participation and evaluat* “random*
corruption* control trial*”
theft of state RCT*
revenues*
diversion of state regression*
assets*
diversion of state time series*
revenue*
misappropriation scientific*
of state property*
diversion of state
property*
integrity* integrity commission*
misconduct* crime and misconduct
commission*
All searches will be stored into EPPI-Reviewer, bibliographic tracking software dedicated to
systematic review, to ensure replicability.
3.3. Data extraction and study coding procedures
3.3.1. Selection of studies
All potential studies identified through the searches will be stored into reference management
software and duplicates removed.
Two independent review authors will start from reading the titles and abstracts of identified
studies in order to determine their eligibility against the inclusion/exclusion criteria. When a
title or abstract cannot be rejected with certainty, the full text of the article will be reviewed.
In case of disagreement between the two review authors at any stage, this will be resolved by
discussion, and if necessary, consultation with a third review author.
The included studies will be then organised into categories based on their methodological
approach, type of interventions, types of administrative corruption acts, geographical region
and other factors.

Studies that appear to be relevant but do not meet the inclusion criteria will be listed in the
table of excluded studies with reasons given for exclusion.
3.3.2. Data extraction and management
Data on the identified studies will be extracted independently by two review authors on the
basis of the template provided by the Cochrane Public Health Group.
In particular, the following information will be stored:
 year of publication;
 country of origin;
 study design;
 sample size;
 recruitment details;
 sample description;
 theoretical basis for intervention;
 intervention type;
 delivery of intervention;
 direct resource/cost requirements of the intervention;
 duration of intervention and follow-up;
 intensity of intervention;
 outcomes (including scales/measures used, time points and results, effect sizes);
 whether or not adverse outcomes were measured and reported;
 potential moderators/confounders of study outcomes and any adjustment processes

used;
 population characteristics;

 process evaluation5 measures;
 programme evaluation measures (if available) 6;
 presence and extent of any bias in attrition
In case of disagreement about whether or not a study should be included, the lead author
(Professor Martin Killias) will act as arbitrator.
Data will be entered into Review Manager (RevMan 5) software and checked for accuracy.
A coding sheet with a description of the data collected is included in the appendixes.
3.3.3. Missing data
In case the selected studies do not report sufficient data to calculate effect sizes, we plan to
contact the authors of the studies and ask for them. In case the authors will or could not
provide the data, we will calculate response ratios effect size. The response ratio provides a
measure of the relative change in an outcome caused by an intervention. Besides some
limitations (see Borenstein et al. 2011), the response ratio offers good possibilities for
estimation.
3.3.4. Description of methods used in the component studies
Studies eligible for inclusion in this review must quantitatively assess the effects of the
administrative reforms on the level of corruption in a given context.
The method used by the studies covered by this review should ideally be based on randomised
control trials (RCT’s), such as the study of Olken (2005) (see summary on page 24).
Randomization and field experiments can be considered the most reliable methods to evaluate
anti-corruption initiatives, because they control well for bias, but they are not the most used.
Indeed, it is often difficult to randomly establish a control group and to obtain support by
decision makers or donor organizations (Johnsøn & Søreide 2013: 18). Therefore, quasi-
experimental methods will also be included in the review. According to Johnsøn & Søreide
(2013: 20) they are most applicable for evaluating large interventions targeting a large number
5Process evaluation or output evaluation relates to the assessment of ongoing activities and of the outputs they
produce. It focuses on whether activities are implemented according to plan and outputs are achieved on time
(Johnsøn & Søreide 2013: 13).
6Programme evaluation or outcome evaluation aim to produce evidence of whether the programme has
achieved its stated objectives (Johnsøn & Søreide 2013: 12)

of people or units. Eligible study designs include randomized controlled trials, natural
experiments, interrupted time-series designs, and any other quasi-experimental design with
or without control group (e.g. pretest-posttest two groups studies and pretest-posttest one
group studies), as well as cross-sectional studies like surveys (e.g. Yongqiang, 2011).
So far our review shows a prevalence of studies based on cross-sectional studies using ordinary
least square multiple regression analyses, such as the one of Yongqiang (2011) estimating the
effect of a government intervention on Chinese firms’ bribery, the one of Treisman (2000)
studying the impact of political decentralization on perceived corruption, and the study of
Steves and Rousso (2003) focusing on the relationship between anti-corruption programmes
and the level of administrative corruption.
3.3.5. Criteria for determination of independent findings
There may be different sources of non-independence of findings, the most important regards
the following issues:
1. Multiple indicators of the level of corruption reported in a single study (e.g. police
recorded cases, prosecuted cases). Only one will be selected for the analysis, taking into
consideration the most updated data and the comparability with the results of the other
studies included in the review.
2. Multiple outcomes or time-points within a single study on the same participants. In

case of different outcomes measured at multiple points in time (e.g. in time-series
studies where the level of corruption is measured 6 months after the implementation
of the reform, 12 months after and 3 years after) we will synthetize (average) multiple
effect size related to the same outcome from the same sample, prior to meta-analysis.
In particular, assuming an underlying uniform distribution for corruption we will
calculate an average effect size for the time points before the intervention, and an
average effect size for the time points after the intervention, and compare the two of
them We recognize that there are many other ways to deal with this type of time series
data (see Borenstein et al. 2009); however, given the research questions and the likely
nature of the intervention effect, we believe that this method is the most reliable and
parsimonious. In addition, even if we are aware that the effects of administrative
reforms usually take a while before producing tangible outcomes, we think it is
important to consider all the measurements of the same outcome at different points in
time. Any relevant difference in the same outcome at different points in time will be
reported within the results. It could, indeed, provide key information on the
functioning of a specific intervention as well as on the confounding effects of other
variables. In case of other study designs reporting multiple effect sizes for the same

outcome on the same participants, we will compute the mean of these effect sizes and
their variance (see Borenstein et al. 2009 for further details).
3. The same data being reported across multiple documents. The most complete and
detailed manuscript in terms of data availability and the most reliable according to the
risk of bias assessment will be designated as the primary coding source. We will make
sure that the effect sizes we calculate come from independent samples. In order to do
so, we will enter the information about each article/document into a data file (Excel)
and we will note down those cases where a sample may have overlapped with another
study. For each study, we will differentiate the unique outcomes derived from the same
sample, and then will combine multiple effect sizes describing the same outcome from
the same sample. We will then go again through the sample characteristics of our
studies to check that any effect sizes from different studies utilizing the same sample
will be combined together for our final analysis.
3.3.6. Details of study coding categories
Preliminary coding sheets have been produced for this protocol and included in its
appendixes. They illustrate the systematic method of extracting information regarding each
study’s characteristics, research design, participants, type of intervention, type of outcome,
risk of bias, etc.
Further table will be used to summarize the results of the critical appraisal for each study.

3.4. Assessment of risk of bias in included studies
When developing a systematic review, the most difficult source of bias to control for is the low
methodological quality of the selected studies (Jarde et al. 2012).
In order to ensure the selection of studies methodologically sound, the researchers will assess
the overall quality of each of them on the basis of the STROBE statement (Strengthening the
reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)7 checklist.
In addition, the potential specific risks of bias (selection bias, performance bias, detection bias,
attrition bias, reporting bias, and other potential risks) of included studies will be also assessed
using the relevant Cochrane EPOC (Effective Practice and Organisation of Care) “Risk of Bias”
tool8.
In particular, for studies with a separate control group (RCTs; NRCTs and CBA studies), the
overall risk of bias will be estimated as low, high or unclear, on the basis of the nine standard
criteria identified in the EPOC classification (1. Sequence generation, 2. Allocation
concealment, 3. Blinding of participants and personnel, 4. Blinding of outcome assessment, 5.
Incomplete outcome data, 6. Selective outcome reporting, 7. Other potential risks of bias). For
interrupted time series (ITS) studies, the overall risk of bias will be assessed on the basis of
the six standard criteria identified by EPOC (1. Independence of the intervention of secular
changes; 2. Pre-specification of the shape of the intervention effect; 3. Likelihood of the
intervention to affect data collection; 4. Blinding of outcome assessment; 5. Selective outcome
reporting; 6. Other potential risks of bias) (see also Petticrew & Roberts 2006: 138).
It has to be mentioned that, on the basis of the preliminary literature review we have
conducted, there are few true experimental or quasi-experimental studies providing data on
the effects of anti-corruption reforms, and, thus, several non-experimental studies will have
to be appraised before including them into the review.
Sanderson et al. (2007) highlighted that there is not a single and unanimously recognised tool
for assessing the quality of non-experimental studies. Discussion on this issue was developed
by Jarde et al. (2012 and 2013) in two different articles, leading to the creation of the tool Q-
Coh.
7 http://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists
8 See
http://epoc.cochrane.org/sites/epoc.cochrane.org/files/uploads/Suggested%20risk%20of%20bias%20criteria%
20for%20EPOC%20reviews.pdf

Following the checklists provided by the STROBE statement, the Q-Coh tool, and the
framework provided by Petticrew and Roberts (2006: 142) this review will assess the risk of
bias for non-experimental studies looking at four specific items which can affect the
methodological quality of a research:
a) Design of the study – The quality level of the design of non-experimental studies will
be evaluated as low, high or unclear by answering the following questions: 1. What question(s)
is the study aiming to answer?; 2. Was the study specifically designed with this question(s) in
mind?; 3. Are the setting, locations, population and data collection method of the study
carefully described? (Yes/No/DK); 4. Does the study clearly define all outcomes, predictors,
potential confounders, and effect modifiers? (Yes/No/DK for each item); 5. Does the study
provide sources of data and/or details of methods of measurement for each variable of
interest? (Yes/No/DK); 6. Does the study explain how the study size was arrived at?
(Yes/No/DK); 7. Does the study describe all statistical methods, including those used to
control for confounding? (Yes/No/DK); 8. Does the study explain how missing data were
addressed? (Yes/No/DK); 9. Does the study mention any effort to address potential sources of
bias? (Yes/No/DK).
b) Representativeness – In order to evaluate whether the results of a specific study could

be generalized from the sample to the target population, the following questions will be
answered: 1. Have the study participants been selected using a randomized sampling
procedure? (Yes/No/DK); 2. Is the similarity between the selected group of subjects and the
target population justified by the authors? (Yes, empirically/Yes, verbally/No); 3. Is the
sample surveyed representative? 4. In case of surveys, is the response rate high enough to
ensure that response bias is not a problem, or has response bias been analysed and shown not
significantly affect the study? 5. In case of surveys, has the same data collection method been
used across all population subgroups?; 6. Is the survey method likely to have introduced
significant bias?;
c) Outcome measure – In order to evaluate whether the measure of the outcome variable
reflects the true situation, the following questions will be answered: 1. Was the outcome
variable explicitly defined? (Yes/No/DK); 2. Is the outcome variable the most appropriate
measure for answering the study question? 3. Was the tool used to assess the outcome variable
valid? (Yes/Presumably/No); 4. Was the tool used to assess the outcome variable reliable?
(Yes/Presumably/No); 5. Was the tool used to assess the outcome appropriate?
(Probably/Unlikely).
d) Statistical control – In order to assess the level of reliability of the results, the following
questions will be answered: 1. Were known confounding factors accounted for in the design or
in the statistical analysis? (Yes/Partially/No); 2. Were other potential confounders taken into
account in the statistical analyses? (Yes/No); 3. Is there any potential confounder that was not

taken into account by the authors? (Probably none important/Probably/Yes). 4. Does the
study provide unadjusted estimates and, if applicable, confounder-adjusted estimates and
their precision (eg, 95% confidence interval)? (Yes/Partially/No); 5. Does the study make clear
which confounders were adjusted for and why they were include? (Yes/Partially/No).
On the basis of these evaluations we will provide each study with an assessment of the study
quality “weight”, the overall weight of evidence which the study provides. During this phase,
we will also provide technical details on analytical9 and statistical methods used to test the
effectiveness of the anti-corruption reforms.
To obtain a preliminary and visual assessment of the risk of bias, forest plots ordered by
judgements on each ‘Risk of bias’ entry will be analysed (through RevMan5). Forest plots on
the risk of bias are useful to provide a visual overview both of the relative contributions of the
studies at low, unclear and high risk of bias, and also of the extent of differences in intervention
effect estimates between studies at low, unclear and high risk of bias.
Effect sizes belonging to studies presenting different risk of bias will not be combined together.
In particular, studies with a ‘high’ or ‘unclear’ risk of bias will be kept separated from the main
analysis and treated as a separated category. Ideally, studies at high or unclear risk of bias
should be given reduced weight in meta-analyses, compared with studies at low risk of bias.
However, formal statistical methods to combine the results of studies at high and low risk of
bias are not sufficiently well developed. Therefore, the major approach is still to restrict meta-
analyses to studies at low (or lower) risk of bias, or to stratify studies according to risk of bias
(Spiegelhalter 2003).
3.4.1. Assessment of reporting bias
In order to assess whether there is a systematic difference between reported and unreported
findings, the following questions will be answered: 1. Were some outcomes, but not others,
selectively reported in the study depending on the nature and direction of the results?
(Yes/No). 2. Were the research findings published or non-published depending on the nature
and direction of the results? (Yes/No); 3. Were the publication of the research delayed
depending on the nature and direction of the results? (Yes/No); 5. Were the research findings
published in journals with different ease of access or levels of indexing in standard databases,
depending on the nature and direction of the results? (Yes/No).
In order to further check for publication bias, we will assess whether there are significant
differences between the results of published and unpublished studies, by using funnel plots to

assess the relationship between effect size and study precision and by running a sensitivity
analysis to identify the level of impact caused by different effect estimates in small studies.
Considering that the statistical significance of the results is often considered a requirement for
publication (Gerber & Malhotra 2008a, 2008b), a large number of published studies with a p-
values just below the standard 0.05 threshold can be considered a first sign of the presence of
publication bias (Molina 2013: 32).
3.5. Statistical procedures and conventions
Ideally, this project would comply with the standards of meta-analysis (as specified by Lipsey
and Wilson, 2001, or by Petticrew and Roberts, 2006) to synthetize the results of the
considered evaluations. The a-priori rule for conducting meta-analysis requires two or more
studies, each with a computable effect size of a common outcome construct, and similar
comparison conditions (Wilson et al., 2011).
3.5.1. Effect size extraction and transformation
According to the nature of the data being collected, the comparable effect size estimates will
be extracted from existing studies together with 95 percent confidence intervals. This effect
size data or data that can be used to calculate a standardized effect size will be recorded in
free-text format as part of the standardized coding sheet. A second reviewer will double-check
the coding and data extraction for every study that contains effect size data. All relevant data
will be input into Rev Man or Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software to calculate
standardized effect sizes and their standard errors and the conversion between effect size
types, to ensure that a common metric is used.
The different effect sizes will be then treated and calculated as following:
 In case both the dependent and independent variables are dichotomous, the Odds-Ratio
(OR) effect size will be calculated.
 In case both the dependent and independent variables are continuous, the correlation
coefficient (Pearson product moment correlation) effect size will be calculated.
 In case of analyses comparing two groups' performance on a continuous outcome

(continuous outcome variables), the standardised mean-difference (SMD) effect size
will be calculated. Hedges' g will be used for estimating standardized mean differences.
 Ordinal outcomes and measurement scales will be treated as dichotomous variables.
 In case of regression-based studies, as far as exposure is often measured using different

methods and metrics across the studies, the standardized beta coefficient effect size

will be used for scaled independent variable. For dichotomous independent variables
the semi-partial correlation coefficients effect size will be calculated.
Odds-Ratio, Correlation Coefficients and Standardized Mean Effect Sizes Effect sizes will be
calculated both by hand using Microsoft Excel as well as by using the David Wilson’s Practical
Meta-Analysis Effect Size Calculator 10 , or other similar programmes (Rev Man or
Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software).
Effect sizes will be reported using forest plots.
3.5.2. Effect size combination
Following the Cochrane Handbook, the combination of intervention effect estimates across
studies will be computed using the inverse variance weight method (IV). Assuming that the
different studies differ for a number of reasons (e.g. study design, type of intervention, type of
country covered, etc.), a random-effects meta-analysis will be developed and the variance
components (τ2) calculated accordingly (method of moments estimator in RevMan).
The meta-analysis will combine only those studies focused on the same outcome, the same
unit of analysis, the same type of intervention, the same type of study design, and the same
type of effect size. For example, an Odds Ratio effect size in a cross-sectional study will not be
included in the same analysis as a standardized mean-difference effect size in a longitudinal
study. Only one effect estimate per study will be included in a single meta-analysis.
Therefore, we will calculate separate effect sizes, and report them by using forest plots, for
each different group indicated in table 2 below.
10 http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/escalc/html/EffectSizeCalculator-Home.php

Table 2 – Potential groups for which different effect sizes will be calculated
Type of Type of effect Type of Country’ Unit of Type of

study size intervention income level analysis outcome
design
1. RCT
1. OD 1. Economic 1. High income
1. Geographical 1. Bribery of
2. SMD areas public officials
3. OD
4. SMD
2. Quasi- 5. Beta coeff. 2. Educational
2. Middle 2. Government
2. Embezzlement
exp. 6. Semi-partial income agencies
correlation
coeff.
3. Misappropriat
ion or other
3. Public
3. Cultural 3. Low income diversion of
companies
property by a
public official
4. Organizatio
4. Private
nal or 4. Nepotism
companies
bureaucratic
5. Trading in
5. Civil influence, abuse
5. Political
servants. of function, illicit
enrichment
6. Judicial or
6. Extortion
repressive
The review will also provide technical details on analytical11 and statistical methods used to
test the effectiveness of the anti-corruption reforms.
3.5.3. Assessment of heterogeneity
In order to test whether the different effect sizes that are averaged into a mean value all
estimate the same population effect size, we will report tests for between-studies variability12
of effects (Hedo-Medina et al. 2006). In particular, we will compute a Q test of homogeneity
between groups and calculate the I2 index to complement the results of the Q test (Higgins and
Green 2011, Huedo-Medina et al. 2006).
We assume the presence of between-studies variability in our review as far as the included
studies differ on a number of characteristics (e.g. geographical region, characteristics of the
11 Foranalytical method is intended here all the methodological steps followed to determine the answer to a posed
research question, e.g. from the variables’ identification to their measurement, etc.
12In a homogeneous distribution, effect sizes differ from population mean only by sampling error (within-study
variability) (Huedo-Medina et al. 2006).

samples, variations in the treatment, in the design quality, in the unit of analysis, etc.) and as
such assume and implement a random-effects model for meta-analysis.
Depending on the number of available studies, we will explore potential causes of

heterogeneity, based on the subgroups listed in table 2. Caution will be taken in the
interpretation of results with a high level of unexplained heterogeneity.
3.5.4. Moderator analysis
In order to test whether and how variation among studies in effect size is associated with
differences in key contextual factors (e.g. geographical region, country income level and types
of corruption) we will run a moderator analysis.
If our moderators are categorical (e.g. low, medium and high income countries; corruption
intended as bribery, diversion of public assets, etc.), we will estimate models analogous to one-
way ANOVA.
Considering that we might have to deal with small sample sizes within each sub-group, if the
number of cases in the sub-groups is lower than 5 we would need to use a pooled estimate of
the variance component otherwise we will use separate estimates of the variance component
(τ2) within sub-groups.
Even if we assume that the moderators included in our review will be mainly categorical, in
case of continuous moderators and if we want to test more than one moderator (either
continuous or categorical) we will use meta-regression.
3.5.5. Sensitivity analysis
In order to check for the certainty13 of our findings we will perform several sensitivity analyses
in our review, including: type of counterfactual, experimental vs. non-experimental studies,
randomized vs non-randomised studies; relevant differences in impact measure, traditional
versus meta-analyses including the risk of bias and the uncertainty about the risk of bias, etc.
It is likely that other issues suitable for sensitivity analysis will be identified during the review
process when the individual peculiarities of the studies under investigation are better defined.
We will specify and report all of them in the last version of our review.
In case sensitivity analyses will show specific decisions or missing information strongly
influencing the findings of the review, we will try to obtain extra information on the concerned
studies.
13 The results of the review are not affected by the different decisions made during the review process.

3.6. Treatment of qualitative research
This review is not meant to cover qualitative studies.

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(5) PRELIMINARY TIMEFRAM E
This review will be completed in approximately two years from the data of the approval of the
protocol.
The following table describes the main methodological steps and related activities of the
project by number of months.
Table 2 – Preliminary timeframe
GOALS MAIN ACTIVITIES MONTHS

Develop the 1. Identification of the search criteria. 1
search strategy 2. Identification of the main databases, journals and websites on
which to search the eligible studies for the Systematic Review.
Identify any 3. Consultation of the main databases and websites focuses on 1
recent or on- systematic review (e.g. Campbell review).
going systematic
reviews
Search relevant 4. Consultation of the databases, journals and websites. 6
sources to 5. Screening of the references of the identified studies.
identify the 6. Contacting authors of relevant studies to get any additional
evidence documents or sisters papers.
Appraise and 7. Extraction of the studies’ information (type, authors, date, 6
select suitable publication status, languages, etc.) and storage into EPPI-
studies Reviewer.
8. Assessment of the studies’ content in terms of eligibility for the
review.
9. Quality appraisal of the statistical methods and quantitative
results of the identified studies.
Synthesise the 10. Categorization of the studies into homogenous groups according 6
data to their methodological approach, the type of administrative
reform evaluated and other relevant factors.
11. Extraction of the studies’ results on the effectiveness of
administrative anti-corruption reforms.
12. Comparison of the different groups of studies’ results.
Review 13. Writing of a research report including all information on the 2
submission main activities carried out to develop the systematic review and
on its main results.
Dissemination 1
Final submission 1

(6) APPENDICES
3.1. Appendix A: Coding sheet
Variable Description Value

id Identification number Numeric
Author Name of authors String
Name of funding
agent String
Title Title of the study String

0 = no
Published
1 = yes
Year of publication (if
Year published)/year of production Yyyy
of the study (if not published).
Geographic Geographic location of study String
location
Income level of the country,1. 1 = High income
Income level of the
classified according to the 2. 2 = Middle income
country covered
World Bank classification 3. 3 = Low income
4. 1 = Book
5. 2 = Book chapter
6. 3 = Journal article
7. 4 = Government or institutional
Publication Type of publication
report
8. 5 = State of local report
9. Working paper
10. Conference presentation
Number of different
N. Interventions interventions/reforms Numeric
compared in this report
Is the assessment of the effects
of administrative reforms on 0 = no
Purpose
corruption the main purpose 1 = yes
of the study?
1 = Economic
2 = Educational
Type of Is the study limited to a
3 = Cultural
administrative certain type of administrative
4= Organisational/Bureaucratic
reforms reforms?
5= Political
6 = Legal/Judicial
1. Geographical areas
2. Government agencies
Unit of analysis 3. Public companies
4. Private companies
5. Civil servants.

Eligibility
criteria
0 = no
1. Quantitative study
1 = yes
Type of study
0 = no
2. Qualitative study
1 = yes
1. The study assesses quantitatively the effects of the
0 = no
administrative or bureaucratic reforms on the
1 = yes
level of corruption
2. The study is an evaluation of an administrative 0 = no
anti-corruption reform/intervention in the public 1 = yes
sector.
3. The study assesses the level of corruption before
and after the implementation of the reform,
measured through criminal justice statistics;
surveys’ data of the general population or of 0 = no
particularly knowledgeable groups (such as 1 = yes
Study content business people), and/or any other quantitative
indicator on the experience and perception of
corruption.
4. The study reports at least one outcome measure
after the intervention, based on criminal justice
statistics; surveys’ data of the general population
0 = no
or of particularly knowledgeable groups (such as
1 = yes
business people), and/or any other quantitative
indicator on the experience and perception of
corruption.
5. The study is written in English, German, French, 0 = no
Italian, Spanish, Russian, or Vietnamese. 1 = yes
0 = no
1. Randomised controlled trials (RCT’s)
1 = yes
0 = no
2. Natural experiments
1 = yes
0 = no
3. Time-series/pre-post test (no control group)
1 = yes
Study design
0 = no
4. Time-series/pre-post test (with control group)
1 = yes
0 = no
5. Cross-sectional studies
1 = yes
0 = no
6. Other (specify)
1 = yes
Is the same group used at different moments 0 = no
Group
(before/after the intervention)? 1 = yes
Type of 0 = no
1. Economic
interventions 1 = yes

0 = no
2. Educational
1 = yes
0 = no
3. Cultural
1 = yes
0 = no
4. Organisational/Bureaucratic
1 = yes
0 = no
5. Political
1 = yes
0 = no
6. Legal/Judicial
1 = yes
0 = no
7. Quantitative
Measure of the 1 = yes
intervention 0 = no
8. Qualitative
1 = yes
0 = no
1. Briberies of public officials
1 = yes
0 = no
2. Manipulation of public tenders
1 = yes
0 = no
3. Kickbacks from providers in public sector
1 = yes
Type of 0 = no
4. Embezzlement
corruption 1 = yes
(outcome 0 = no
information) 5. Nepotism-based recruitment and promotions
1 = yes
0 = no
6. Theft or diversion of state revenues/assets
1 = yes
7. Absenteeism
0 = no
8. Favouritism
1 = yes
0 = no
9. Trading in influence
1 = yes
0 = no
10. Abuse of function
1 = yes
0 = no
11. Illicit enrichment
1 = yes
0 = no
12. Extortion
1 = yes
1. Police statistics (number of cases of corruption 0 = no
reported to the police and recorded by the police) 1 = yes
2. Prosecution statistics (number of cases of 0 = no
Source of data corruption prosecuted) 1 = yes
on corruption 0 = no
3. Conviction statistics
1 = yes
4. Victimization data on individuals’/households’ 0 = no
experiences of corruption 1 = yes

5. Victimization data on individuals’/households’ 0 = no
perception of corruption 1 = yes
6. Victimization data on businesses’ experiences of 0 = no
corruption 1 = yes
7. Victimization data on businesses’ perception of 0 = no
corruption 1 = yes
0 = no
8. Other quantitative indicator (specify)
1 = yes
0 = no
9. Not known
1 = yes
Methodological issues on the outcome measures
1. Dichotomy Scale
2. Trichotomy Scale
Type of
3. Four or more discrete ordinal categories Scale
measurement scale
4. Continuous Scale
5. Survival measure Scale
0 = no
1. t-test
1 = yes
0 = no
2. F-test
1 = yes
0 = no
3. Chi-square
1 = yes
Type of statistical 4. Regression analysis, including logistic 0 = no
test regression 1 = yes
0 = no
5. Other
1 = yes
0 = no
6. No-analysis
1 = yes
0 = no
7. Not known
1 = yes
0 = Low
1. Sequence generation 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
2. Allocation concealment 1 = High
Risk of bias for 2 = Unclear
studies with a 0 = Low
separate control 3. Blinding of participants and personnel 1 = High
group (RCTs; 2 = Unclear
NRCTs; CBA) 0 = Low
4. Blinding of outcome assessment 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
5. Incomplete outcome data 1 = High
2 = Unclear

0 = Low
6. Selective outcome reporting 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
7. Other potential risks of bias 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
1. Independence of the intervention of secular
1 = High
changes
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
2. Pre-specification of the shape of the
1 = High
intervention effect
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
3. Likelihood of the intervention to affect data
1 = High
Risk of bias for collection
2 = Unclear
interrupted time
0 = Low
series
4. Blinding of outcome assessment 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
5. Selective outcome reporting 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
6. Other potential risk of bias 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
1. Study Design 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
2. Representativeness 1 = High
2 = Unclear
Risk of bias for 0 = Low
non-experimental 3. Outcome measure 1 = High
studies 2 = Unclear
0 = Low
4. Statistical control 1 = High
2 = Unclear
0 = Low
5. Reporting bias 1 = High
2 = Unclear

(7) SOURCES OF SUPPORT
Internal funding:
Support for this study will be provided by the University of St. Gallen and Killias Research &
Consulting (KRC).
External funding:
The Swiss National Scientific Foundation will be approached for funding.
(8) DECLARATIONS OF INTE REST
None of the authors has any conflicts of interest in the outcome of the review.
(9) REVIEW AUTHORS
Lead review author:
Name: Martin Killias
Title: Professor of Criminology and Criminal Law,

Director of Killias Research & Consulting (KRC)
Affiliation: (1) University of St. Gallen,

(2) Killias Research & Consulting
Address: (1) Tigerbergstrasse 21, CH-9000 St.Gallen,
Switzerland
(2) Rathausgasse 30, P.O.2094, 5600
Lenzburg 2, Switzerland
Country: Switzerland
Phone: +41 62 891 02 54
Mobile: +41 79 621 36 56
Email: martin.killias@unisg.ch, martin.killias@krc.ch

Co-author(s): (There should be at least one co-author)
Name: Giang Ly Isenring
Title: PhD
Affiliation: (1) University of St. Gallen


Switzerland
(2) Rathausgasse 30, P.O. 2094, 5600
Phone: +41 62 891 02 54
Mobile: +41 79 707 70 19
Email: giangly.isenring@unisg.ch
giangly.isenring@krc.ch
Name: Giulia Mugellini
Title: PhD
Affiliation: (1) University of St.Gallen

Switzerland
(2) Rathausgasse 30, P.O. 2094, 5600
Phone: +41 62 891 02 54
Mobile: +39 3471588056
Email: giulia.mugellini@unisg.ch,
giulia.mugellini@krc.ch
Name: Patrice Villettaz

Title: PhD
Affiliation: University of Lausanne
Address: Quartier UNIL-Sorge

Bâtiment Batochime
CH-1015 Lausanne
Phone: 021 692 46 40
Email: patrice.villettaz@unil.ch
(10) ROLES AND RESP ONSIBLIITIES
• Content: Martin Killias, Giulia Mugellini, Giang Ly Isenring
• Systematic review methods: Giulia Mugellini, Giang Ly Isenring, Patrice Villettaz
• Statistical analysis: Giulia Mugellini, Patrice Villettaz
• Information retrieval: Giulia Mugellini, Giang Ly Isenring,
(11) PLANS FOR UPDATING T HE REVIEW
This review will be updated every three years to include new anti-corruption reforms. The
primary authors will take the lead in future updates.
(12) PUBLICATION IN THE C AMPBELL LIBRARY
The support of the Campbell Collaboration and the relevant Coordinating Group in preparing
your review is conditional upon your agreement to publish the protocol, finished review and
subsequent updates in the Campbell Library. Concurrent publication in other journals is
encouraged. However, a Campbell systematic review should be published either before, or at
the same time as, its publication in other journals. Authors should not publish Campbell
reviews in journals before they are ready for publication in the Campbell Library. Authors
should remember to include a statement mentioning the published Campbell review in any
non-Campbell publications of the review.
I understand the commitment required to undertake a Campbell review, and agree to publish
in the Campbell Library. Signed on behalf of the authors:
Form completed by: Giulia Mugellini, Giang Ly Isenring, Martin Killias, Patrice Villettaz
Date: 4 November 2015

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Protocol:

Administrative Reforms in the Public Sector

Submitted to the Coordinating Group of:

Yes Cochrane Other

1 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

1.1. The Problem, Condition or Issue

Corruption is a pervasive phenomenon and significant in both developed and developing

2 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

Administrative corruption: the problem of this review

3 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

Anti-corruption interventions/reforms implemented at the administrative

4 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

Why the focus on administrative corruption and why it is a target for

(1) The importance of the parties involved in administrative corruption

This leads us to another significant reason to focus on administration corruption. As a

5 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

(2) The diversity of types of acts/offences of administrative corruption

6 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

7 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

8 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

This systematic review focuses on interventions which represent different types of

Administrative reforms have been defined as changes or transformations

Existing classifications of potential administrative anti-corruption reforms are usually focused

9 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

(4) organizational or bureaucratic – focused on the improvement of internal control

(6) judicial or repressive measures – focused on the implementation of harsher penalties

10 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

Some examples are provided in the following chapter.

Examples of the types of possible interventions

Decentralization is another example of anti-corruption reforms. When applying a

1. Reduce the likelihood of corruption

11 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

3. Create a corruption-proofed environment

1. Public e-Procurement to manage public bid processes online and increase

2. Whistleblowers’ protection through the development of informatics systems within

12 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

However, a preliminary and general approach, based on the anti-corruption interventions’

13 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

• Administrative corruption (e.g. weak

• Economic (e.g. higher salaries to civil servants/public officials)

• Civil servants earn more

• More qualified staff

• Reduced level of administrative

14 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

Fig. 2 – Example of the practical functioning of anti-corruption interventions. Source:

15 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

The main objectives of this systematic review are the following:

From the formulated objectives specific research questions emerge accordingly:

2. Do different types of interventions have different effects on corruption?

3. Do the effect of a specific intervention change across developed and developing

16 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

This systematic review aims at providing quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of

3.1. Criteria for including studies in the review

3.1.1. Type of study designs

17 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

 Geographical areas (countries, regions, provinces, local municipalities),

3.1.3. Types of interventions

18 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

6. Judicial or repressive measures

The intervention has to be quantitatively measured. In particular, it could be measured either

19 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org

The dependent variable should be measured quantitatively. It means that the

 surveys’ data of the general population or of particularly knowledgeable groups (such