On self selection of the corrupt into the public sector

•A new lab experiment on corruption - it models embezzlement.•The paper examines if corruption is a dimension of occupational sorting.•Compares corruption propensities among public and private sector aspirants.•Average embezzlement by public sector aspirants is higher than the other group.•There is no difference in the likelihood of being corrupt across the two groups.

Do corrupt people self select themselves in professions where the scope of corruption is high? We conduct a corruption experiment with private sector job aspirants and aspirants of Indian bureaucracy. The game models embezzlement of resources in which “supervisors” evaluate the performance of “workers” and then pay them. We find that aspirant bureaucrats indulge in more corruption than private sector aspirants but the likelihood of being corrupt is same across two sectors.