IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v43y2015icp156-166.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the wrong side of the law – Causes and consequences of a corrupt judiciary

Author

Listed:
  • Voigt, Stefan
  • Gutmann, Jerg

Abstract

Empirical research on the determinants of corruption has made substantial progress over the last decade. To date, the consequences of different structures of the legal enforcement institutions have, however, only played a marginal role. This contribution deals with both the determinants of corruption in the judiciary and the consequences of judicial organization for corruption at large. Regarding the latter, it is shown that the actual independence of the judiciary as well as that of prosecution agencies is correlated with lower levels of corruption. This is also true for a third indicator that measures the degree to which judges are held accountable for their decisions (“judicial accountability”). Furthermore, independence and accountability function as complements in preventing corruption – judicial accountability without independence appears to be ineffective, whereas judicial or prosecutorial independence alone can even have adverse effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Voigt, Stefan & Gutmann, Jerg, 2015. "On the wrong side of the law – Causes and consequences of a corrupt judiciary," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 156-166.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:43:y:2015:i:c:p:156-166
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2014.04.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818814000192
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irle.2014.04.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Anne van Aaken & Lars P. Feld & Stefan Voigt, 2010. "Do Independent Prosecutors Deter Political Corruption? An Empirical Evaluation across Seventy-eight Countries," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 12(1), pages 204-244.
    5. Buscaglia, Edgardo, 2001. "An analysis of judicial corruption and its causes: An objective governing-based approach," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 233-249, June.
    6. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2014. "Editor's Choice The Relevance of Judicial Procedure for Economic Growth," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 60(3), pages 490-524.
    7. Van-Ha Le & Jakob de Haan & Erik Dietzenbacher & Jakob de Haan, 2013. "Do Higher Government Wages Reduce Corruption? Evidence Based on a Novel Dataset," CESifo Working Paper Series 4254, CESifo.
    8. Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The economic effects of judicial accountability: cross-country evidence," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 95-123, April.
    9. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Courts: the Lex Mundi Project," NBER Working Papers 8890, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Rauch, James E. & Evans, Peter B., 2000. "Bureaucratic structure and bureaucratic performance in less developed countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 49-71, January.
    11. Feld, Lars P. & Voigt, Stefan, 2003. "Economic growth and judicial independence: cross-country evidence using a new set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 497-527, September.
    12. Van Rijckeghem, Caroline & Weder, Beatrice, 2001. "Bureaucratic corruption and the rate of temptation: do wages in the civil service affect corruption, and by how much?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 307-331, August.
    13. Stefan Voigt & Lorenz Blume, 2007. "Wenn Justitia die Hand aufhält – Ursachen und Folgen korrupter Justizbehörden," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(1), pages 65-92, January.
    14. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Indicators 2013," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13191, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jamie Bologna Pavlik, 2017. "Political importance and its relation to the federal prosecution of public corruption," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 346-372, December.
    2. Berggren, Niclas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2020. "Corruption, judicial accountability and inequality: Unfair procedures may benefit the worst-off," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 341-354.
    3. Jerg Gutmann & Viola Lucas, 2018. "Private-Sector Corruption: Measurement and Cultural Origins," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(2), pages 747-770, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefan Voigt & Lorenz Blume, 2007. "Wenn Justitia die Hand aufhält – Ursachen und Folgen korrupter Justizbehörden," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(1), pages 65-92, January.
    2. Günther G. Schulze & Bambang Suharnoko Sjahrir & Nikita Zakharov, 2016. "Corruption in Russia," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 135-171.
    3. Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The (Economic) Effects of Lay Participation in Courts – A Cross-Country Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2365, CESifo.
    4. Jerg Gutmann & Stefan Voigt, 2019. "The Independence of Prosecutors and Government Accountability," Supreme Court Economic Review, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 1-19.
    5. Chen, Yanting & Liu, Qijun, 2018. "Public-sector wages and corruption: An empirical study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 189-197.
    6. Andrea Sáenz de Viteri Vázquez & Christian Bjørnskov, 2020. "Constitutional power concentration and corruption: evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 509-536, December.
    7. Bin Dong & Benno Torgler, 2010. "The Causes of Corruption: Evidence from China," Working Papers 2010.72, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    8. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2014. "Africa is on time," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 311-338, September.
    9. Martin Gassebner & Jerg Gutmann & Stefan Voigt, 2016. "When to expect a coup d’état? An extreme bounds analysis of coup determinants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 293-313, December.
    10. Dreher, Axel & Kotsogiannis, Christos & McCorriston, Steve, 2007. "Corruption around the world: Evidence from a structural model," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 443-466, September.
    11. Lindsey Carson & Mariana Mota Prado, 2014. "Mapping Corruption and its Institutional Determinants in Brazil," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series iriba_wp08, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    12. Bin Dong & Benno Torgler, 2010. "The Causes of Corruption: Evidence from China," Working Papers 2010.72, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    13. Maximiliano Lauletta & Martín A. Rossi & Christian A. Ruzzier, 2022. "Audits and Government Hiring Practices," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 214-227, January.
    14. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The Relevance of Judicial Procedure for Economic Growth," MAGKS Papers on Economics 200828, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    15. Blaise Gnimassoun, Joseph Keneck Massil, 2019. "Determinants of corruption: can we put all countries in the same basket?," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 16(2), pages 239-276, December.
    16. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2010. "Enforcement and Public Corruption: Evidence from US States," EPRU Working Paper Series 2010-08, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    17. Maxime Delabarre, 2021. "Corruption and Development," Working Papers hal-03114382, HAL.
    18. Anthonsen, Mette & Löfgren, Åsa & Nilsson, Klas, 2009. "Natural Resource Dependency and Quality of Government," Working Papers in Economics 415, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    19. Dong, Bin & Torgler, Benno, 2010. "The Causes of Corruption: Evidence from China," Institutions and Markets Papers 91024, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    20. Voigt, Stefan, 2012. "On the optimal number of courts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 49-62.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Judiciary; Judicial independence; Prosecutorial independence; Judicial accountability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:43:y:2015:i:c:p:156-166. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.