Question: Write a literature review on Corruption has been spread out in customs administrations around the world regardless of the development level of countries. Calculated cost

Write a literature review on Corruption has been spread out in customs administrations around the world regardless of the development level of countries. Calculated cost of customs corruption over the world is about USD 2 billion. Safeguarding of the integrity of customs officials by controlling corruption is, therefore, a big challenge for every customs administration. Understanding the significance of the problem, World Customs Organization continuously works on it by introducing several instruments, tools and guidelines to member administrations. Basic theoretical foundation of most of the conventional anticorruption measures implemented by customs are ill-fated.
Collective Action Theory is more appropriate to explain corruption behaviour in many customs administrations than the commonly applied Principal-Agent Model since whole system is corrupted in many countries. On the other hand, applied rational thinking pattern of individuals which built by assuming their behaviour of maximizing utility is not valid always because some psychological short cuts and social norms can deviate the human thinking from the rational approach. In such situations, nowadays, it is common to apply Behavioural Insights for public policies including the policies of anticorruption. This study, therefore, tries to find suitable measures based on beahvioural insights to safeguard the integrity in customs when the conventional measures fail. Alternatively, behavioural controls seem to be very low cost compared to presently applied high cost controls like automation. The most successful effort could be the establishment of group to act against corruption within the customs administration comprising with officers to change the customs atmosphere towards anticorruption. They must be competent enough to conduct research and develop "nudges" to change attitudes of officers.
Information campaigns organized with the participation of customs staff and clients can upgrade their knowledge on consequences of corruption on economy and society and eventually, they will become whistleblowers. Safeguarding of integrity is one of the greatest challenges faced by customs administrations since corruption has been spread out around the world regardless of the development level of countries (McLinden & Durrani, 2013). Integrity has, therefore, become one of the hot topics in World Customs Organization's (WCO) agenda. Among several instruments developed by WCO to control corruptions in its member administrations, Arusha Declaration (WCO,2003) is the blueprint providing ten important factors to be considered in preparing the national customs integrity programs. Apart from such recommendations, customs administrations follow various measures to secure integrity within organizations depending on their level of capacity.
Even though governments made efforts to combat corruption over last two decades, it was very rare to observe the dramatic reduction in corruption (Gans-Morse et al.,2018). Inefficiencies in anticorruption policies are due to theoretical misinterpretation of the corruption situation (Di Donato, 2017). Almost all the anticorruption policies are designed with the base of the principal-agent model that describes the possibility of misusing power by the agent since there exists an information asymmetry between the principal and the agent. Strengthening the monitoring and controlling of agent's behaviour is the basic solution for this matter. But this model collapses when the whole system is corrupted because the monitoring body is also corrupted. Then the corruption incidence should be addressed as the collective agent problem (Rothstein,2011;
Persson, Rothstein & Teorel, 2013).
Application of behavioural insights for public policy has become a popular practice, particularly in developed countries. Behavioural insights acquired the attention of policy makers with the success story, "the nudge unit" established in UK under the Cameron regime in 2010(Halpern,
2015). Many countries could obtain best results in adopting behavioural insights for public policies specifically in sectors like tax, health etc. (OECD,2017a). It has been emphasized that behavioural controls can add new dimension for anticorruption strategies giving promising results (Di Donato, 2017).
This study, therefore, tries to find ways to adopt behavioural insights in safeguarding integrity of customs since conventional policies have resulted failures due to lapses in theoretical base particularly in situations where the whole system becomes corrupted. Education of stakeholders by arranging social programs against corruption with the participation of customs staff would be effective. The most successful effort could be the establishment of a group to act against corruption within the customs administration comprising with officers to change the customs atmosphere towards anticorruption. They must be competent to develop "nudges" to change attitudes.
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