Corruption and Optimal Law Enforcement

A. Mitchell Polinsky () and Steven Shavell ()

No 6945, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This article analyzes corruption of law enforcement agents: payment of bribes to agents so that they will not report violations. Corruption dilutes deterrence because bribe payments are less than sanctions. The state may not be able to offset this effect of bribery by raising sanctions for the underlying offense. Thus, it may be optimal to expend resources to detect and penalize corruption. At the optimum, however, corruption may not be deterred. Nonetheless, it may be desirable to attempt to control corruption in order to raise the offender's costs -- the sum of the bribe payment and the expected sanction for bribery -- and thereby increase deterrence of the underlying violation.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-mic
Date: 1999-02
Note: LE
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Related works:
Working Paper: Corruption and Optimal Law Enforcement (1999)
Journal Article: Corruption and optimal law enforcement (2001)
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