Legal Standards, Enforcement and Corruption

Marco Pagano and Giovanni Immordino

No 7071, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Stricter laws require more incisive and costlier enforcement. Since enforcement activity depends both on available tax revenue and the honesty of officials, the optimal legal standard of a benevolent government is increasing in per-capita income and decreasing in officials' corruption. In contrast to the "tollbooth view" of regulation, the standard chosen by a self-interested government is a non-monotonic function of officials' corruption, and can be either lower or higher than that chosen by a benevolent regulator. International evidence on environmental regulation show that standards correlate positively with per-capita income, and negatively with corruption, consistently with the model's predictions for benevolent governments

Keywords: Corruption; Enforcement; Legal standards; Tollbooth view (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 K42 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-pol and nep-reg
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Legal Standards, Enforcement, and Corruption (2010)
Working Paper: Legal Standards, Enforcement and Corruption (2009)
Working Paper: Legal Standards, Enforcement and Corruption (2009)
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