We study experimentally whether anti-corruption policies with a focus on bribery might be insufficient to uncover more subtle ways of gaining an unfair advantage. In particular, we investigate whether an implicit agreement to exchange favors between a decision-maker and a lobbying party serves as a legal substitute for corruption. Due to the obvious lack of field data on these activities, the l...

This paper presents the findings of a field experiment on hiring discrimination against ex-offenders in the Swedish labor market. Matched pairs of written job applications for fictitious male and female applicants with and without a past conviction of assault were sent to employers for nine different occupations. Results show that discrimination against ex-offenders exists, but the extent of it...

Corruption, Shadow Economy and Income Inequality: Evidence from Asia A number of recent studies for Latin America show that as the size of the informal economy grows, corruption is less harmful to inequality. We investigate if this relationship is equally compelling for developing countries in Asia where corruption, inequality and shadow economies are considerably large. We use Panel Least Squa...

This paper examines the strategic interaction of a defendant and a prosecutor during the plea bargaining process. A four-stage game of incomplete information is developed where the defendant’s guilt or innocence is private information but the amount of resources available to the prosecutor is common knowledge. The basic result of the paper is that equilibrium is semi-separating; the plea o¤er i...

Compliance is an important issue in environmental regulation. We discuss some of the key elements of the problem and analyze a situation where emissions are not random and firms are risk-neutral. We study the firm’s decision on emissions and compliance when the environmental regulation is based on standards and the enforcement agency audits the firm with a certain probability. We compare total ...

We study the effect of unemployment on child maltreatment in the United States for the period 2004-12, at the county level. We use a new administrative dataset containing every report of child abuse and neglect made to the Child Protective Services, and identify the effect using a Bartik instrument. A one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate causes a 20 percent increase in neglect...

We study the emergence and interaction of red tape and corruption in a principal–bureaucrat– agent hierarchy. The principal is to provide the agent with a unit of a good that involves externalities so that market mechanisms fail to achieve first best. Red tape produces information but is costly to the agent and is administered by a corrupt bureaucrat. First, the bureaucrat may extort bribes fro...

Criminal Victims, Victimized Criminals, or Both? A Deeper Look at the Victim-Offender Overlap Offenders are more likely than non-offenders to be victims, and victims are more likely than non-victims to be offenders. The overlap between offenders and victims is not well understood in criminology, and in the economics of crime the stylized empirical fact is even widely ignored. The paper gives a ...

Regulation produces enormous benefits and costs, both of which are greatly influenced by myriad exemptions and preferences for small firms that contribute a significant minority of output in many sectors. These firms may generate a disproportionate share of harm due to their being exempt and because exemption induces additional harmful activity to be channeled their way. This article analyzes o...

Corruption has fierce impacts on economic and societal development and is subject to a vast range of institutional, jurisdictional, societal and economic conditions. Research indicates that corruption’s predominantly negative effects have arisen to a massive trans-border threat while creating high obstacles to sustainable and prospective development, ultimately impairing everybody’s life. This ...