Theoretical work on disciplining corrupt agents has emphasized the role of expected future rents?for example, efficiency wages. Yet taken seriously this approach implies that illicit future rents should also deter corruption. We study this "golden goose" effect in the context of a statutory wage...

Relying on a small natural field experiment conducted by the Norwegian Environmental Protection Agency, I estimate effects of three fundamental elements of most monitoring and enforcement practices: self-reporting, audit frequency and specific deterrence. I find evidence of under-reporting of...

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that this isolation reduces accountability. We then provide direct evidence that the spatial distribution of population relative to the capital affects different...

Unlike economic theories of tax law enforcement, real income tax law application requires thorough interpretation of the law and the actual facts with regard to tax purposes. The automatic assessment produced by a computer program in German tax offices suggests the existence of a mechanically...

The OECD’s new Public Integrity Indicators offer a credible alternative to existing corruption-related indices, as they draw directly on data from member countries instead of expert views. The indicators unpack the general notion of corruption into specific integrity risks and measure the...

Deterrence of illegal activities is frequently carried out by many atomistic auditors (tax auditors, law enforcement agents, etc.). Not much is known either normatively about the best way to incentivize atomistic auditors, nor positively about what these incentives actually look like in real...

We consider a model of polluting firms subject to tax on emissions, monitoring, and penalties in case of underreporting and which face a choice between a more expensive clean and a less expensive dirty technology. Moreover, emissions are subject to random events.We show that the optimal...

This paper analyzes a model in which a firm's compliance with regulation is monitored by a supervisor. The supervisor exerts costly, unobservable effort to raise his inspection intensity, which leads to moral hazard. A non-compliant firm may exert effort in avoidance to reduce the probability of...

We conduct the first empirical economic investigation of the decision to cheat by university students. We investigate student demand for essays, using hypothetical discrete choice experiments in conjunction with consequential Holt–Laury gambles to derive subjects’ risk preferences....