Enforcement and public corruption: Evidence from the American states

James E. Alt; David Dreyer Lassen

doi:10.1093/jleo/ews036

Enforcement and public corruption: Evidence from the American states

55 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We use panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant US Attorneys and relative public sector wages, and careful attention to the consequences of modeling endogeneity to estimate the impact of prosecutorial resources on criminal convictions of those who undertake corrupt acts. Consistent with system capacity arguments, we find that greater prosecutor resources result in more convictions for corruption, other things equal. By explicitly determining the allocation of prosecutorial resources endogenously from partisan and administrative considerations, we show that this specification leads to larger estimates of the effect of resources on convictions. We also control for and confirm in a panel context the effects of many previously identified correlates and causes of corruption. We find more limited, recent evidence for the deterrent effect of increased prosecutions. The results are robust to various ways of measuring the number of convictions as well as to various estimators. (JEL D72, D73, H83, K42)

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
Volume	30
Issue number	2
Pages (from-to)	306-338
Number of pages	33
ISSN	8756-6222
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ews036
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2014

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title = "Enforcement and public corruption: Evidence from the American states",

abstract = "We use panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant US Attorneys and relative public sector wages, and careful attention to the consequences of modeling endogeneity to estimate the impact of prosecutorial resources on criminal convictions of those who undertake corrupt acts. Consistent with system capacity arguments, we find that greater prosecutor resources result in more convictions for corruption, other things equal. By explicitly determining the allocation of prosecutorial resources endogenously from partisan and administrative considerations, we show that this specification leads to larger estimates of the effect of resources on convictions. We also control for and confirm in a panel context the effects of many previously identified correlates and causes of corruption. We find more limited, recent evidence for the deterrent effect of increased prosecutions. The results are robust to various ways of measuring the number of convictions as well as to various estimators. (JEL D72, D73, H83, K42)",

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AU - Alt, James E.

AU - Lassen, David Dreyer

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PY - 2014/1/1

Y1 - 2014/1/1

N2 - We use panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant US Attorneys and relative public sector wages, and careful attention to the consequences of modeling endogeneity to estimate the impact of prosecutorial resources on criminal convictions of those who undertake corrupt acts. Consistent with system capacity arguments, we find that greater prosecutor resources result in more convictions for corruption, other things equal. By explicitly determining the allocation of prosecutorial resources endogenously from partisan and administrative considerations, we show that this specification leads to larger estimates of the effect of resources on convictions. We also control for and confirm in a panel context the effects of many previously identified correlates and causes of corruption. We find more limited, recent evidence for the deterrent effect of increased prosecutions. The results are robust to various ways of measuring the number of convictions as well as to various estimators. (JEL D72, D73, H83, K42)

AB - We use panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant US Attorneys and relative public sector wages, and careful attention to the consequences of modeling endogeneity to estimate the impact of prosecutorial resources on criminal convictions of those who undertake corrupt acts. Consistent with system capacity arguments, we find that greater prosecutor resources result in more convictions for corruption, other things equal. By explicitly determining the allocation of prosecutorial resources endogenously from partisan and administrative considerations, we show that this specification leads to larger estimates of the effect of resources on convictions. We also control for and confirm in a panel context the effects of many previously identified correlates and causes of corruption. We find more limited, recent evidence for the deterrent effect of increased prosecutions. The results are robust to various ways of measuring the number of convictions as well as to various estimators. (JEL D72, D73, H83, K42)

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DO - 10.1093/jleo/ews036

M3 - Journal article

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JO - Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization

JF - Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization

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Enforcement and public corruption: Evidence from the American states

Abstract

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