Enforcement and Public Corruption: Evidence from US States
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Enforcement and Public Corruption : Evidence from US States. / James E., Alt; Lassen, David Dreyer.
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, 2010.Research output: Working paper › Research
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TY - UNPB
T1 - Enforcement and Public Corruption
T2 - Evidence from US States
AU - James E., Alt
AU - Lassen, David Dreyer
N1 - JEL classification: D72, D73, H83, K42
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - We use high-quality panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant U.S. 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. We find more limited, recent evidence for the deterrent effect of increased prosecutions. We control for and confirm in a panel context the effects of many previously identified correlates and causes of corruption. By explicitly determining the allocation of prosecutorial resources endogenously from past corruption convictions and political considerations, we show that this specification leads to larger estimates of the effect of resources on convictions. The results are robust to various ways of measuring the number of convictions as well as to various estimators.
AB - We use high-quality panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant U.S. 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. We find more limited, recent evidence for the deterrent effect of increased prosecutions. We control for and confirm in a panel context the effects of many previously identified correlates and causes of corruption. By explicitly determining the allocation of prosecutorial resources endogenously from past corruption convictions and political considerations, we show that this specification leads to larger estimates of the effect of resources on convictions. The results are robust to various ways of measuring the number of convictions as well as to various estimators.
KW - Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
KW - corruption
KW - rent seeking
KW - enforcement
KW - efficiency wage
KW - public sector wages
KW - system capacity
M3 - Working paper
BT - Enforcement and Public Corruption
PB - Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
ER -
ID: 21594320