It takes two to tango: complementarity of bonding and bridging trust in alleviating corruption in cities

Petty administrative corruption (bribery) can be seen as a regional phenomenon and investigated in the spatial context. By applying Heckman selection models with instrumenting to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s
(EBRD) Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) data, it is found that larger cities appear more prone to corruption. However, capital cities exhibit lower corruption, owing to differences in social and political structures and government accountability. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the importance of the meso-level social environment, exploring complementarity between bridging (across broader local society by institutional trust) and bonding trust (within more embedded communities) in alleviating bribery.