Corruption, organized crime and the bright side of subversion of law

Astrid Gamba (), Giovanni Immordino and Salvatore Piccolo ()

Journal of Public Economics, 2018, vol. 159, issue C, 79-88

Abstract: We study an enforcement model in which, as soon as a Legislator grants an amnesty to low-rank criminals cooperating with the justice, top criminals react by bribing public officials in order to avoid being sanctioned. We show that, to prevent this form of subversion of law, the optimal policy must grant leniency not only to low-rank criminals but also to officials who plead guilty and report bribe-givers. By doing so, the policy increases the conviction risk not only for top criminals but also for their soldiers. This higher risk increases the reservation wage that top criminals must pay in order to recruit soldiers and therefore reduces the crime profitability (the bright side of subversion of law).

Keywords: Criminal organizations; Corruption; Leniency; Subversion of law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 D78 K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Corruption, Organized Crime and the Bright Side of Subversion of Law (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:159:y:2018:i:c:p:79-88

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.02.003

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