United Nations diplomats are legally allowed to ignore parking tickets. Some diplomats pay the fines, others don't. In his article "What parking tickets teach us about corruption," Tim Harford cites a study that shows a "strong correlation between unpaid tickets and more general perceptions of corruption."
Fisman and Miguel studied parking violations between 1997 and 2002, finding a strong correlation between unpaid tickets and more general perceptions of corruption. The worst offenders were Kuwait, Egypt, Chad, Sudan and Bulgaria. One Kuwaiti diplomat managed to accumulate two unpaid parking fines every working day for a year.
In contrast, the entire consulates of Denmark, Norway and Sweden did not pick up a single unpaid parking ticket — not one — in the entire six-year period. Given the temptations, that is impressive.
But no less impressive were the British diplomats. They, too, accumulated no unpaid fines. So we must not despair. The recent outcry suggests that there is still a price to be paid for breaking the rules, or for trying to rewrite them when convenient.
[via The Browser]
