We study the consequences of leniency - reduced legal sanctions for wrongdoers who spontaneously self-report to law enforcers - on sequential, bilateral, illegal transactions such as corruption, manager-auditor collusion, or drug deals. It is known that leniency helps to deter illegal...

A model of harassment bribes (paid for services one is entitled to) is developed and used to analyze the recent proposal to legalize paying bribes while increasing fines on accepting bribes. We explore performance as regards corruption deterrence and public service provision. A modified scheme,...

The paper reviews the recent evolution of leniency programs for cartels in the US and EU, surveys their theoretical economic analyses, and discusses the empirical and experimental evidence available, also looking briefly at related experiences of rewarding whistleblowers in other fields of law...

Leniency programmes (or policies) reduce sanctions against cartel members that self-report to the Antitrust Authority. We focus on their ability to directly deter cartels and analogous criminal organizations by undermining internal trust, increasing individual incentives to ‘cheat’ on...

Flexibility - the ability to react swiftly to others' choices - facilitates collusion by reducing gains from defection before opponents react. Under imperfect monitoring, however, flexibility may also hinder collusion by inducing punishment after too few noisy signals. The combination of these...