Whistleblowing Game. Un approccio sperimentale alla lotta alla corruzione

When policymakers select strategies aimed at encouraging the blowing of the whistle their approach is often normative. It means that not only the broad political goals but also the strategies to fulfill it are based on the ground of normative justification. For instance, it's often said that whistleblowers should be rewarded because their decisions are ethically right and not because rewarding is more effective than do not reward them. I argue that the normative approach could trigger heterogony of ends and could lead policymakers to failure in achieving the political aim. Instead this approach I advance an alternative one based on the no standard instrumentalism. A worry side effect of the normative strategy is that it denies the possibility to find out the more effective strategy within those capable to realize the broad political aim, namely boost the blowing of the whistle. I show up this inadequacy of the normative approach through the nudge theory and libertarian paternalism. I propose a positive and empirical approach in selecting strategies, rooted in the field of experimental economics,and based on an original economic game (the whistleblower game) in which participants find themselves in a decision environment akin to the decision environment in which whistleblowers take their decision in real life. The structure of the economic game introduced gives the possibility to act on the cognitive mechanisms that I conjecture underlying the choice of the would-be whistleblower. I argue that the whistleblower’s utility function is defined by both monetary payoff and psychological utilities. I propose two fundamental psychological utilities, that is strong reciprocity – that increase the probability of denunciations – and in-group loyalty, that decrease it. Comparing the results of different experimental treatments allow us to predict the effectiveness of available strategies. Through the whistleblowing game I have been able to verify the failure of the neoclassical economics’ prediction on the choice to denounce a wrongdoing or not and proposing an explanation of its failure.