Last updated on March 31, 2011
Kaushik Basu thinks they should, according to this post on NPR’s Planet Money blog:
“Under current Indian law, Basu writes, ‘once a bribe is given, the bribe giver and the bribe taker become partners in crime. It is in their joint interest to keep this fact hidden from the authorities and to be fugitives from the law, because, if caught, both expect to be punished.’Â But if the law were changed as Basu suggests, ‘once a bribe is given and the bribe giver collects whatever she is trying to acquire by giving the money, the interests of the bribe taker and bribe giver become completely orthogonal to each other.'”
For the record, Kaushik’s course in theoretical development economics is one of the best two development economics courses I have ever taken — the other one was Chris Barrett‘s empirical development economics — throughout the 10 years that my career as a student covered.