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When people want to conduct a transaction, but doing so would be morally disreputable, they can obfuscate the fact that they are engaging in an exchange while still arranging for a set of transfers that are effectively equivalent to an exchange. Obfuscation through structures such as gift-giving and brokerage is pervasive across a wide range of disreputable exchanges, such as bribery and sex work. In this article, we develop a theoretical account that sheds light on when actors are more versus less likely to obfuscate. Specifically, we report a series of experiments addressing the effect of trust on the decision to engage in obfuscated disreputable exchange. We find that actors obfuscate more often with exchange partners high in loyalty-based trustworthiness, with expected reciprocity and moral discomfort mediating this effect. However, the effect is highly contingent on the type of trust; trust facilitates obfuscation when it is loyalty-based, but this effect flips when trust is ethics-based. Our findings not only offer insights into the important role of relational context in shaping moral understandings and choices about disreputable exchange, but they also contribute to scholarship on trust by demonstrating that distinct forms of trust can have diametrically opposed effects.

• The establishment of Circuit Courts significantly enhances corporate TFP. • The establishment of corporate improves the macro-level market competition environment, legal environment, and contractual environment, enhances micro-level resource allocation efficiency, strengthens innovation capacity, reduces bribery expenses, eases financing constraints, and promotes specialized division of labor, thereby improving corporate TFP. • The positive effects of Circuit Courts are more pronounced among firms in regions with higher levels of local protection and administrative intervention, lower levels of intellectual property judicial protection, weaker product market competition intensity, and among non-state-owned enterprises without political connectio. The strategic importance of total factor productivity (TFP) in the high-quality development phase of enterprises is increasingly prominent, and understanding the impact of regional judicial capacity on corporate TFP is crucial. We treat the establishment of Circuit Courts as a quasi-natural experiment for regional judicial capacity and construct the staggered difference-in-differences model to examine how regional judicial capacity affects corporate TFP. We find that the establishment of Circuit Courts significantly enhances corporate TFP. Mechanism tests show that the establishment of Circuit Courts improves the macro-level market competition environment, legal environment, and contractual environment, enhances micro-level resource allocation efficiency, strengthens innovation capacity, reduces bribery expenses, eases financing constraints, and promotes specialized division of labor, thereby improving corporate TFP. The positive effects of Circuit Courts are more pronounced among firms in regions with higher levels of local protection and administrative intervention, lower levels of intellectual property judicial protection, weaker product market competition intensity, and among non-state-owned enterprises without political connections. Our results remain robust after a series of robustness and endogenous tests. Overall, this study not only reveals the important role of judicial capacity enhancement on enterprise development, but also provides evidence support for deepening the reform of the judicial system and improving the Circuit Courts system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a growing body of work suggests that women representatives are less likely to be involved in corruption scandals, we know less about if changes in representation patterns also have implications for citizens' first-hand experiences with corruption in public service delivery. This study suggests that women elected representatives reduce street level bribery, in particular when the share of women increases in contexts where relatively few women are elected or when the absolute increase in women's representation is relatively large. Using newly collected data on the share of women in 128 regional level parliaments in 10 European countries and four rounds of the European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey (2010–2021), our two-way fixed effects models show that on average, the proportion of women in regional parliaments is strongly associated with citizens' self-reported experiences of bribery across all countries and years. Furthermore, our difference-in-difference design shows that the level of bribery in public service provision dropped more sharply in regions that experienced a greater absolute or greater marginal increase in women's representation. Our results may be understood in light of women candidates placing priority on well-functioning and low corrupt public service provision and the important signals of inclusiveness, non-discrimination and decreased tolerance towards corruption that women's representation conveys to civil servants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on white-collar and corporate crime often notes that these crimes are complex due to their scale, longevity, and hidden, layered, and global nature. Embedded in these discursive descriptions is the assumption that complexity is unidimensional and operates solely in a linear fashion. Yet, corruption and transnational bribery are the results of a complex system that involves diverse actors interacting in dynamic environments, which can produce multiple classes of outcomes that may include different patterns of complexity in crime. In this paper, we empirically explore potential variability in patterns of complexity in transnational corporate bribery using official data from cases prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the United States. Our findings indicate that crime "complexity" can take different forms, suggesting that the relationship between variables can unfold in dynamic ways. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a number of countries have strengthened their anti-corruption laws. Some of these laws apply to foreign firms, including those based in the United States. Considering, however, that the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is regarded as the most powerful anti-corruption regime in the world, a key question arises: Do foreign anti-corruption laws affect US firms? Using US multinational firms' differential exposure to the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the 2010 United Kingdom Bribery Act (UKBA), this study provides evidence suggesting that they do. Following the UKBA's adoption, US firms subject to its jurisdiction curb their business in high-corruption-risk countries, relative to their unexposed US peers. This result is more pronounced for firms with greater bribery exposure and enforcement risk and passes a battery of placebo and robustness tests. These findings suggest that foreign anti-corruption laws produce incremental regulatory costs for US firms by raising the potential for multijurisdictional enforcement. As policymakers worldwide deliberate on approaches to reduce cross-border corruption, this evidence aligns with the view that enacting extraterritorial laws can enhance the effectiveness of anti-corruption regulation in the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the paper, the role of a citizen, a public official, and an observer in the reproduction of bribery as a social norm are each analyzed. To make the analysis of this cellular-social form of corruption, three variables are incorporated: the agent's perception of how widespread the corruption is, the agent's available resources with which to act, and the role of moral values. Later, some scenarios of normalization and denormalization of corruption are explored, making different assumptions regarding the analysis and assignment of agents to different roles in the interactions. What was found is that power relations among corrupt and non-corrupt agents are key for understanding the social reproduction of bribery, where inequality might facilitate the social reproduction of corruption. The role of the observer of the interaction of bribe-givers, bribe-takers, and bribe-resisting agents was also found to potentially tip the balance in the direction of normalization or denormalization of bribery. Hence, giving the observer tools to intervene in these interactions becomes essential to combat corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, Ukraine is in the aspect for various directions of the regulations of the legal environment as a whole. Therefore, now in its history, it is expedient to find different directions of normative models for fighting corruption. Forming the normative-legal aspect of the historical period in Ukraine and the former USSR, it is extremely appropriate to allocate a number of fundamental, single-out directions. After all, the normative model of the fight against corruption is formed on the part of our state based on the behavior of individuals and the reproduction of deviations from the isolated legal aspect that they provide as a whole. This normative model is aimed at the era of „Stalinism”. Therefore, in order to overcome the fight against the formation of corruption in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine, human rights in general are greatly violated, because the aspectual totalitarianism was formed incompatible with their emergence. There are also positive aspects to the expediency of the formation: it was formed to study the educational discipline in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine, an appropriate interaction between the isolated degree of human authority and the degree of aspectism in general. Inheritance of being brought to normative responsibility and bearing – implies for the persons who are closest to the top of the authorities in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine – the closer the entourage is to the top, the more it implies a very high risk of temptation. That is, the formation of the principle of implementation of the normative surface model responsibility: „top-down”, which is an extremely necessary means of implementing the social, legal and economic model of justice as a whole. Improving the educational environment in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine also expediently forms a model of fighting corruption in the economic direction – the realization of strong legal and economic responsibility of a person is necessary, according to the recommendations of the „leader”. For the necessary permissible time, such personalities formed the model party elites. This formed model forms the basis of directions during the times of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. It is also appropriate to recall two more specific features of the economic model created under the conditions of martial law in Ukraine: firstly, the formation of an individual in the permissible direction of his power requires a normative and legal argument, secondly, money in this model has only a secondary role or not have a conceptual aspect as a whole. Noting that the educational component in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine is a model of combating corruption, I ensure the impossibility of the desire to force people into power structures on the basis of personal considerations and irresponsibility; therefore, it contains the main arguments of public power and its resulting bribery of the individual as a whole. The educational component in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine forms a model of the fight against corruption, has complete impunity and the impossibility of argumentation in general. These arguments are formed in periods of rich revolutionary legal norms, when the newly created state did not receive the necessary management functions of leadership or deliberately creates only destructive trends in the economy. Normativity of the economy of the existence of this legal model is precisely the time of the administration of the Provisional Government, because reforms in education as a whole are expediently addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the effects of bribery on the digitization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within Latin America. We apply neo‐institutional theory as the overarching theoretical framework to establish that bribery negatively influences digitization. We propose that firm characteristics (i.e., managerial experience and firm size) affect the firm‐level relationship between bribery and digitization. We also examine how the perceived tax burden mediates the effect of bribery on digitization. Our study is both theoretically and practically relevant. Theoretically, we are among the first to explicate the direct relationship between bribery and digitization. This novel perspective extends the information systems literature to explain digitization challenges in Latin America. For managers and policymakers, we present a path towards essential digitization for Latin American SMEs. Our empirical analysis uses secondary data from a World Bank survey of 1549 Latin American SMEs conducted over three years in six countries. Our findings show that bribery negatively influences digitization while SME characteristics positively moderate this relationship. In addition, we show that the perceived tax burden mediates the effects of bribery on digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: This research aims to investigate the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors on European banking corruption. Thus, its novelty is based on considering anti-competitive concerns as a major component that may considerably impact fraud and bribery in corruption investigations. (2) Methods: To approach the research question, we conducted an examination of anti-competitive practices at 344 financial institutions headquartered in Europe throughout the period 2018 to 2022 using the entropy weight and TOPSIS methods. (3) Results: This study reveals that anti-competitive actions are typified by environmental debate and genuine policy competition. Analysing the results prompted us to reach this conclusion. The present study's findings reveal that financial institutions in Scandinavian nations demonstrate the most significant anti-competitive activity. (4) Conclusions: This research is the first study to underscore the concept of anti-competition disputes and their impact on the emergence of corruption, extortion, and fraud in the European banking sector. Although anti-competitive and corrupt practices may appear to be distinct concepts, they both lead to the financial sector acquiring disproportionate control over the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits the payment of bribes to foreign public officials. We uncover an unintended consequence—the shadow economies of the countries of these officials increase after FCPA enforcement. Our hypothesis is that corrupt officials may be switching to taking bribes from illegal markets. We find that one case of FCPA enforcement alone increases the shadow economy by as much as 0.27 percentage points (pp), tree loss—an indicator of illegal logging—by 0.027 pp, and trade misinvoicing by 0.5 pp. Our results suggest the need to harmonize anti-corruption policies across all sectors—legal and illegal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government intervention, whether in the role of a regulator or a market participant, presents opportunities for corruption. A burdensome regulatory environment creates more opportunities and incentives for individuals and firms to circumvent these regulations by resorting to different forms of bribery. Glaeser and Saks find that benefits of circumventing the regulations increase as the size of the government increases. The studies collected in this special issue investigate the relationship between various forms of government interventions on corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a model with corrupt and honest examiners, and applicants with heterogeneous innate ability in the education sector with effort and bribe modelled as substitutes. The results show that ‘strong’ candidates rely only upon effort; ‘medium’ candidates choose positive levels of bribe and effort; ‘weak’ candidates rely only on bribery. They also show that corruption may decrease education quality by lowering aggregate effort while increasing education quantity by increasing the aggregate chances of obtaining a degree, depending on candidates’ ability and the proportion of corrupt examiners. We also find empirical support for the key predictions of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of rising global inequality, public concerns for inequality have been declining. This paradox of inequality has been explained by the rise in meritocratic beliefs in some developed countries. Untested in South Africa, the most unequal society, this study aims to report on these issues by investigating the impact of meritocratic and nonmeritocratic beliefs on redistribution preferences in South Africa. Using the International Social Survey Programme data for 2009 and 2019, we find that contrary to some developed countries, meritocratic beliefs have declined despite persistent high inequality. Nonmeritocratic factors like sex and race are perceived as less critical for personal success, while bribery and political connections gain prominence. Results reveal that stronger meritocratic beliefs correlate positively with redistribution preferences, whereas nonmeritocratic beliefs have minimal impact. This challenges the notion that high inequality intensifies meritocratic beliefs and reduces demand for redistribution, suggesting the need to consider South Africa's unique historical and socioeconomic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Babylon Center for Humanities Studies is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Bribery and other forms of petty corruption typically arise in bureaucratic encounters and are a common element of the everyday experience of the state in many countries, particularly in places with weak institutions. This type of corruption is especially troublesome because it creates direct costs for citizens when accessing services and benefits to which they are formally entitled. However, only a few studies deal with how situational attributes of bureaucratic interactions create incentives for citizens to pay bribes and opportunities for street-level bureaucrats to demand them. We contribute to filling this gap by providing evidence that administrative burdens increase the chance of bribery. We do so by analyzing the prevalence of (attempted) bribery in more than 63,000 interactions across 20 different types of bureaucratic encounters, ranging from paying taxes to accessing essential services, using multilevel logistic regression analysis. Our study contributes to understanding the possible consequences of administrative burdens and the factors conducive to petty corruption in specific citizen–state interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Retos: Nuevas Perspectivas de Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación is the property of Federacion Espanola de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educacion Fisica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper revisits the relationship between rent-seeking and market reform. We consider a scenario where less efficient domestic and more efficient foreign firms are engaged in Cournot competition bribery. The local firm pays for imposing a cost on the foreign firms; the foreign firms pay so that the local competitor does not obtain an overwhelming advantage. With corrupt politicians, free trade will only be adopted if it maximizes the value of the bribes they receive. A positive relationship between free-trade reform and corruption can occur when foreign firms face little competition or if they are not sufficiently efficient compared to domestic firms. On the other hand, when foreign firms operate in a competitive environment, radical free trade reduces the supply of bribes to politicians, which is precisely why such trade is not adopted. If the number of foreign firms is limited, both drastic reform and corruption are facilitated. With competition from a large number of foreign firms and the existence of a relatively efficient local firm, no reform is implemented, and the level of corruption remains unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: We examine the relationship between political competition, corporate bribery, and corporate contributions to politically connected charities, and whether there is a shift from covert to concealed corporate nonmarket action as political competition increases. Panel analysis using rare corporate bribery and charity donations panel data from South Korea reveals that as political competition increases, corporate bribery decreases, whereas corporate contributions to politically connected charities increase. Subsequent panel analysis uncovers that amid increased political competition, firms that made larger bribes in the prior year contribute more to politically connected charities in the subsequent year, and that this form of rechanneling is more pronounced for smaller business groups. Implications are discussed. Managerial Summary: This study argues that the field of strategy needs to do more to analyze firms' illegal strategic behavior, both to gain a deeper understanding of business practices in the corporate world and to develop recommendations for policymakers on how to curb such behavior over time. Using comprehensive and rare firm‐level data on bribery of high‐level government officials and donations to politically connected charities from South Korea, this study analyzes how businesses rechannel their bribery of senior‐level politicians to contributions to politically connected charities as the country's level of political competition becomes stronger. This study proposes a theory of rechanneling and demonstrates support for the theory using the extensive data set on bribery and politically connected charity donations from South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates corruption in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Using World Bank’s BEEPS IV and BEEPS V surveys, we investigate the degree of corruption in these countries for different industries. We focus on the manufacturing sector, the services sector, and the core sector, and focus on corruption related to customs/imports, courts, and taxes/tax collection. We find that the overall degree of corruption for all three sectors is somewhere between “seldom” and “never”. Our results show that, for all three sectors, the degree of corruption is the highest in taxes/tax collection and the lowest in courts. Again, for all three sectors, shareholding firms with shares traded in the stock market and limited partnerships suffer the most. While for the manufacturing and services sectors, larger firms suffer the most, for the core sector, medium-sized firms suffer the most. When we compare the manufacturing sector to the other sectors, we find that while the overall level of corruption is similar in the manufacturing sector and the other sectors, manufacturers face a higher degree of corruption in transactions related to customs/imports and taxes/tax collection when compared to the other sectors. We do not find any significant difference between the manufacturing sector and the other sectors with respect to the degree of corruption related to courts. Overall, our findings indicate that policymakers in the region need to protect manufacturers from requests/demands for additional payments or gifts by customs authorities and/or by tax collectors and auditors.

The UK Bribery Act (2010) and its failure to prevent the (FtP) model represent a novel approach to corporate accountability. This approach is gaining traction in other issue areas and jurisdictions as a mechanism to incentivise robust corporate compliance policies. Australia now has a comparable offence of Failure to Prevent Foreign Bribery and the model has also been applied to tax evasion and fraud in the UK. As such, the FtP model is developing into an important feature of the corporate accountability landscape. There have been suggestions that the FtP model should be expanded to address social and environmental harms resulting from transnational business practices and corporate liability for failure to prevent corruption is even being considered under international law, as part of an the effort to establish an International Anti-Corruption Court with jurisdiction over individuals and corporations. However, there remains limited empirical research documenting the actual impact of the FtP Bribery on corporate behaviour. This article remedies this gap in scholarship, providing novel insights by analysing for the first time the impact of the FtP bribery offence on publicly available annual reports. It establishes a foundation for further empirical research on the impact of the FtP model beyond reporting, to corporate practices and decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, utilising data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, probes the diverse effects of bribery on the growth of firms in India. The central question we ask is: what motivates certain firms to engage in bribery while others abstain? Employing the endogenous switching regression model, we aim to uncover the intricacies of this heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that bribery can facilitate growth, yet there is substantial heterogeneity in its impact on firms. The impact varies across firm groups: it positively influences those engaging in bribery, while non-bribers would have experienced adverse effects if they had engaged in bribery. Thus, we observe that firms' decision to dis(engage) in bribery is influenced by the returns they derive from such a decision. This suggests that firms' decision to (dis)engage in bribery is a conscious, strategic and rational one, driven by choice rather than coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the perception of corruption shape the willingness to bribe? This study evaluates the socio-psychological determinants of corruption by measuring how different types of messages influence the probability of engaging in corruption for access to public health, social programs, and official documents. This research uses the social norms approach to explore the link among messaging, perception, and behavior. An online experiment was conducted in Peru for two weeks between October and November 2021, using social media (Facebook) to recruit participants (n  = 2584). The participants were divided into two treatment groups and one control group. Those in the treatment groups received informational displays on (i) the perception of corruption as widespread in the public sector (descriptive norm) or (ii) corruption as morally wrong (injunctive norm). The control group did not receive a message. Exposure to messages on corruption increased the overall probability of engaging in corruption. Unexpectedly, those in the injunctive norm group increased their willingness to bribe. Furthermore, this study also found significant differences in bribing behavior based on the different types of public service, gender, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the interplay between corruption, personality traits and political trust. It argues that individuals' personality traits may condition the effect of corruption experience on trust and that these traits also affect how individuals are exposed to corrupt experiences. Using data from the AmericasBarometer 2010, the study finds that openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability amplify the negative effect of corruption on trust in the police. However, only extraversion amplifies the negative effect of corrupt experiences on trust in government. The study also finds that openness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability are linked to exposure to corruption. The study contributes to the literature by showing that personality affects exposure to corruption and constrains the effect of corruption on political trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Examine the implementation possibilities, methods, and benefits of compliance management and anti-bribery management in organisational practice and propose an innovative model for building progressive systems for comprehensive quality and sustainability of production. Methodology/Approach: It examines the structure, methods, and possibilities of system authorisation built according to ISO 37001:2016 and ISO 37301:2021 and the possibilities of their integration into a comprehensive IMS. Findings: Organisations currently need to address issues of individual or joint use of standards, the optimal structure of the integrated system, authorisation, and continuous improvement in the context of increasing competitiveness and ensuring sustainable development in globalised markets. Research Limitation/Implication: The first limitation is the development of globalised policies that may influence the voluntary use of ISOs or change their structure. The second limitation is limited access to the state of preparation of standards revision and their annexes (ISO 37301:2021, ISO 14001:2015). Originality/Value of paper: The paper is original in its connection to addressing the latest globalised challenges by building an integrated organisational system according to voluntary standards and jointly managing multiple aspects, including ensuring accredited system certification. Category: Conceptual paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right now, Ukraine is in an aspect for different areas of the legal environment. Therefore, it is appropriate to find different directions of models for fighting corruption in its history. Redirecting to the legal historical period in Ukraine and the former USSR, it is appropriate to allocate just a few such fundamental directions. This model of combating corruption is addressed on the border of the state by the behavior of individuals and response to deviations from the legal regulation that they provide. This particular model is aimed at the era of «Stalinism». It is precisely to overcome the fight against the direction of corruption during the study of the educational normative discipline «Civil Process» that the rights of the individual are greatly violated, because the totalitarianism addressed is incompatible with their emergence. Therefore, such an expediency of addressing also has positive directions: it is addressed to the study of the educational normative discipline «Civil Process», the appropriate interaction between the degree of authority of a person and the degree of aspectism. The expediency of being brought to administrative responsibility and incurring - increases for individuals who are closest to the top of power during the study of the educational normative discipline «Civil Process» - the closer to the top, the greater the risk. That is, addressing the principle of implementation of superficial responsibility: «top-down», which is a very necessary means of implementing social justice in general. The study of the educational regulatory discipline «Civil Process» also expediently provides a model of combating corruption - the implementation of strong personal responsibility, according to the directions of the «leading person». At this time, the expediency of such persons was foreseen by the party elites. This model provided a basis during the times of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. It is also necessary to mention two more features when studying the educational regulatory discipline «Civil Process», inherent in the model: firstly, the addressing of the individual to the appropriate level of his authority involves a normative and legal aspect, secondly, money in this model has a secondary role or do not have a conceptual apparatus. The study of the educational regulatory discipline «Civil Process» has a model of combating corruption, ensures the desire to force people into power structures on the basis of personal safety and irresponsibility; therefore, it contains the main aspects of public authority and its addressed bribery of the person as a whole. The educational normative discipline «Civil process» in the conditions of the military model of fighting corruption has complete impunity and impossibility. Such aspects are foreseen in periods of rich revolutionary legal aspects, when the newly created state has not yet received the functions of leadership management or consciously foresees destructive directions. Normativeness of the existence of this model is precisely the time of the administration of the Provisional Government, it is also expedient to refrain from reforms in education as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: When an individual leaves evidence to suggest that they are dead to mislead others, they are committing "pseudocide." This study aims to examine pseudocides performed for the purpose of committing or concealing a financial crime. Design/methodology/approach: This manuscript summarizes information from both academic and nonacademic publications. To provide evidence related to the conclusions made by prior authors and identify the risk factors that are often indicative of pseudocide, this manuscript examines the characteristics of pseudocides that received media coverage. Findings: Pseudocides that receive media coverage often involve a prominent figure or a compelling story. These stories are not representative of the average pseudocide, which receives no publicity because it occurs in a less developed nation and is committed by a nonpublic figure. Common characteristics include the absence of a corpse and paperwork procured through bribery. Originality/value: One of the only academic papers focused on pseudocide, this manuscript provides readers with information related to the scope of the issue, common methodologies and factors indicative of pseudocide. This should be of interest to several parties including forensic accountants, insurers, regulators and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to provide authorities managing free trade zones, business enterprises, financial institutions and dedicated free zone customs, police and immigration command assigned to deal with aspects of movement of goods and persons in and out of the free zones with a clear understanding of the cross-border financial crime risks associated with the African Continental Free Trade Area and the risk control measures that combines human intelligence with advanced technology to combat cross-border financial crimes in the African Continental Free Trade Area. Design/methodology/approach: A range of research activities would be used in this study. In addition to a sweeping literature review of academic, official studies and media writings, the main focus is on critically evaluating and analysing primary data by searching and collecting statutes, court cases, administrative rules and regulations and policy documents. Findings: This paper identified bribery and corruption; modern slavery; and trade-based money laundering as the financial crime risks that are of priority concern to African Continental Free Trade Areas and demonstrated how countries can assess and mitigate these risks through adequate policies, procedures and controls including appropriate compliance management arrangement and adequate screening procedures to ensure high standards when hiring employees; corporate transparency; training on managing incidents of modern slavery, forced labour and third-party exploitation; and appropriate monitoring framework for trade-based money laundering activities. Originality/value: While many authors have written research papers on intra-African trade, none of those research papers explained how countries can assess and mitigate financial crime risks in free trade zones. This research paper describes the ways in which cross-border financial crime risks can be assessed and adequately addressed by the authorities managing free trade zones. This research paper analyses the risk assessment topic in line with the African Continental Free Trade Area with a focus on free trade zones in Nigeria. This research paper would help authorities managing free trade zones, commercial organisations and business enterprises to identify, prevent and mitigate cross-border financial crime risks. Zone managements and business enterprises that implement the risk-based approach, in line with the guidance given in this research paper, will be well-placed to avoid the consequences of inappropriate de-risking behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross‐border trade is critical to livelihoods and food security in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), but bribery remains one of the main barriers to economic growth in the region. Does corruption affect intra‐African trade? We address this issue by considering the bilateral trade among 48 sub‐Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2018, which are subject to a high level of corruption. Using a gravity model, the results show that corruption has a positive impact on exports and a negative impact on imports of global, primary, and manufactured goods. However, the difference in the level of corruption between country pairs is negatively and significantly associated with intra‐African trade in manufactured goods. Therefore, to promote the corruption‐free environment needed to facilitate the African Free Trade Agreement, it is essential for policymakers in sub‐Saharan African countries to combat corruption to boost intra‐African trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jurnal Ilmu Hukum, Humaniora dan Politik (JIHHP) is the property of Dinasti Publisher and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Politically connected firms critically rely on their sociopolitical capital to compete; however, a policy-induced loss of board political connections may pose a serious challenge for focal firms and prompt them to develop compensatory moves. Drawing upon resource dependence theory and the nonmarket strategy literature, we examine if and how focal firms may address this challenge through intensifying their bribery activities. Following a year 2013 policy shock that closed the revolving door between former government officials and connected firms in China, we identify a substantial increase of bribery expenditure in a sample of public corporations whose political independent directors were forced by the central government to resign in the subsequent years. Furthermore, we investigate how the strength of this response varies with a host of firm-level contingencies that capture dependence scope and dependence asymmetry in the business-government dyad at the time of the policy announcement. Our study contributes to strategy and governance literatures by demonstrating how firms restructure power relationships after the loss of board political capital. It also sheds light on the regulation of revolving doors under weak institutions by revealing the irony of a well-intentioned "anticorruption" government policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper empirically examines the effects of two distinct innovation strategies. • Independent innovation sands firm performance; spillover innovation greases it. • Greasing effect of spillover innovation is amplified by bribing. • Greasing effect of spillover innovation is amplified under poor institution. • Sanding effect of independent innovation is reduced under good institution. While a large body of literature has explored the impacts of bribery on firm performance, particularly in terms of innovation outcomes, a significant gap exists in understanding the effects of innovation strategies on firms' performance as well as the influence of institutional quality on the interaction between innovation strategies and bribery. This paper empirically addresses this gap by investigating the complex effects of bribing and two distinct innovation strategies—independent innovation and spillover innovation. Using global firm-level evidence from the latest Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, we employ three semiparametric methods to estimate productivity as proxy of firms' performance. Our results show that independent innovation exerts sanding influences on productivity, while spillover innovation and bribery grease the wheels of firm performance. Moreover, bribery and spillover innovation mutually amplify each other's positive effects on firm performance. Further examinations indicate that the impacts of innovation strategies and bribing are significantly moderated by institutional quality. Under poor institutional quality with excessive government control or corruption, the positive influence of spillover innovation and bribing tends to be strengthened. Conversely, good institutional quality mitigates the greasing effects of spillover innovation and bribery. Through multiple robustness tests employing alternative methodologies, firm performance metrics, and institutional quality measures, these findings are consistently confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the moral dilemma of bribery in the presence of official discretion. The moral dilemma is framed as a dynamic choice problem in which an official's present biased temptation preferences that value bribery conflict with commitment preferences that place more value on honesty. The tension between temptation and commitment becomes salient in the presence of the official's discretionary power. More discretion allows the official to lower red-tape which is socially beneficial, but it also makes bribery more tempting thereby making commitment to honesty more costly. Accordingly, a morally committed bureaucrat may choose less discretion (which generates more red-tape) as a remedy to avoid being tempted by bribery. Whereas, the welfare maximizing policy will often impose high discretion, which generates psychic temptation costs on honest officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrity of electronic voting systems is critical in safeguarding the democratic process worldwide. This study addresses the twin challenges of bribery and coercion that undermine most existing electronic voting systems. Recognizing the limitations of current security measures, which fail to protect voter autonomy even after the disclosure of voting secrets, we propose an innovative level-five secure e-voting system. By integrating an additional setup phase, our system maintains voter volition, ensuring security even when key secrets are compromised. Utilizing cryptographic techniques, blind signatures, and subliminal channels in conjunction with smart card PIN mechanisms, our approach not only bolsters system security but also enhances its potential for widespread adoption. This work underscores the importance of advanced cryptographic methods in developing coercion-resistant electronic voting systems that prioritize voter privacy and choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption is a political and economic issue that has a detrimental impact on social and economic development. This study investigated the predictive effect of dispositional awe on corruption, and the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of connectedness. A sample of 548 (Nfemale = 371) individuals, aged between 16 and 71 years old (M = 21.18, SD = 3.39), was collected. Participants completed scales to measure dispositional awe, the sense of connectedness, corruption, and social desirability. Structural equation modelling and a bootstrap procedure were used to analyze the relationship between the variables. Results showed that dispositional awe negatively predicted corruption, including the tendencies for giving and accepting bribes, and this could be explained by the sense of connectedness, after controlling for the effect of social desirability. The findings highlight the significance of dispositional awe in relation to corruption, enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanisms connecting the two variables, and provide practical implications for the prevention of corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-oriented policing has been a mainstay of policing over the past quarter century. In March 2019, the municipality of Coatepeque in Guatemala, with the assistance of Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International, implemented a new community policing plan called Vivir y Prosperar in the Meta Mercado. Vivir y Prosperar was designed to improve security, reduce crime, and promote economic prosperity. This study utilises the pre-test, baseline and 6-months post-test, endline survey data of market vendors in the Meta Mercado to assess whether Vivir y Prosperar reduced fear of crime and increased someone's willingness to report crime to police as tenets of community policing would anticipate. Results show that Vivir and Prosperar did not directly contribute to a decrease in fear of crime or improve one's willingness to report crimes to the police. However, improving personal victimisation experiences, bribery payments, and other factors may indirectly promote a reduction in fear of crime and increase the willingness to report a crime among market vendors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a model where a briber designs a bribing schedule targeted at the governing party within a bipartisan system to secure favorable treatment. Detected corruption increases voters' resentment, and in turn, the risk of political turnover—raising the minimum acceptable bribe. Periods without corruption mitigate such a risk. Should the briber deem bribing unprofitable for sufficiently high levels of resentment, resentment converges to a steady state in finite time. Conversely, if the briber perceives bribing as profitable regardless of the resentment level, the dynamics may result in continuous bribing and an unbounded increase in resentment (exploding dynamics). The model underscores the complexity of addressing corruption, emphasizing the need to balance reducing corruption with preventing excessive political instability. Societal forgiveness and sensitivity significantly shape corruption dynamics and public resentment. While forgiveness reduces long‐run resentment, it concurrently exacerbates long‐term corruption and, on balance, may have a detrimental effect on long‐term welfare. Sensitivity has no long‐run effect on resentment, while it reduces both corruption activity and political instability in the long term. Finally, exogenous political instability exacerbates corruption, resentment, and the risk of exploding dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global petroleum industry has been much maligned over the past 10–15 years for its involvement in foreign corrupt activities due to well-publicized instances of US-led prosecution for bribery of foreign public officials. Among the high-profile cases include the infamous Technip, Snamprogetti, Kellogg Brown & Root, JGC (TSKJ) conspiracy bribing Nigerian officials of the Bonny Island LNG terminal to the far-reaching Odebrecht/Petrobras Brazilian Lava Jato and more recent global Unaoil bribery scandals. What these cases and others have in common is the incidence of 'multi-jurisdictional' prosecution for foreign bribery rather than simply prosecution by US authorities as occurred prior to 2005. Through detailed quantitative analysis, we show how this multi-jurisdictional enforcement is a petroleum industry trend. The financial and reputational risk in terms of both likelihood and impact of a foreign bribery event has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Despite this increased risk, we found little evidence of a risk-based compliance approach among industry participants. We show that the current practice of limiting liability is not an efficient risk-based approach towards corruption compliance and is not likely to meet new anti-corruption compliance guidelines by international regulators. Our research examines a possible cause-and-effect model behind this heightened corruption risk. We profile and describe the nature of the top 10 petroleum industry multi-jurisdictional bribery cases. We then provide a display of a corruption event's drivers, consequences, and barriers in the form of a risk-based 'bow-tie' diagram. Finally, we recommend ways the industry can move towards a more risk-based corruption compliance approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paying bribes to access public services is a common form of corruption faced by citizens worldwide. A standard policy recommendation to address this problem is to create secure channels and encourage citizens to report bribery to authorities. Bribery reporting tools aim to decrease the incidence of bribery, but they could also serve to bolster anti-corruption commitment. Can bribery reporting channels also inspire citizens to fight corruption? This paper tests the claim that institutional responsiveness to bribery reporting triggers a positive feedback mechanism. The positive feedback mechanism refers to the proposition that advertising successful cases of institutional responsiveness not only persuades citizens of institutional commitment to fighting corruption but also inspires them to uptake various anti-corruption activities. The empirical strategy relies on Afrobarometer survey data from 12 countries, specifically focusing on individuals reporting bribery incidents who also answer a survey question about the subsequent actions taken by authorities. The paper assesses the persuasion effect by examining whether institutional responsiveness correlates with more positive perceptions of public institutions. Additionally, the paper assesses the inspiration effect by investigating whether this responsiveness is associated with citizens' willingness to take part in anti-corruption activities. The findings show that, even though those who have observed responsiveness to bribery reporting tend to evaluate public institutions more positively, they do not seem more willing to engage against corruption than those who do not observe responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade witnessed a surge in anti-corruption activities in post-Soviet oil-dependent countries. Despite the scale of the anti-corruption measures, and their political implications, the extant literature paid limited attention to the comparison of these campaigns, including differences in their motivations, functions, objectives, and targets. Aiming to fill this research gap, this study employs a mixed-methods research design that combines fixed-effects panel data analysis with a paired-case qualitative analysis of Russia and Kazakhstan. I argue that anti-corruption policies are the result of either economic necessity or the desire to secure power through buttressing regime legitimacy. Consequently, a significant drop in oil price due to the COVID-19 crisis is likely to result in a major anti-corruption campaign targeting high-level officials in oil-rich countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theocracy is the unification of two authorities, political and religious, and it is better to use theocratic authority; because ((we do great injustice to religion when we attribute to it such an absolute and arbitrary rule that takes people's necks in the name of divine will, as there is no religion among the major heavenly religions that one goes to or adheres to, but rather in every era a group of followers of this religion or that has appeared who resort to interpreting some religious texts and presenting personal efforts and subjective interpretations that enable them to reach power, so they have the reins of affairs, and they use in most cases the most despicable ways: such as intrigues, murder and bribery, attracting people with money or terrorism, hypocrisy and lying to God)) The novelist focused in his narrative works, the sample of the research, on the extremist religious authority where fanaticism prevails and the noose tightens on people, as it is an extremist authority that seeks to achieve its interests by various means, and he portrayed this aspect well in some novels that shed light on a dark era in the country's contemporary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A change in the way Indian shows and television shows are produced may be seen in the release of Sacred Games, the first Indian original series on Netflix. It is essential to understand this series because it has generated a market for Indian television shows on Netflix in India. Even though the relationship between cops and gangsters in a city is a well-known one, this show's portrayal of it takes the form of seasons and episodes, with the city's portrayal being the main focus to help the viewer understand it. With regard to gendered politics, women, patriarchy, and intergroup violence, it discusses how criminals, politicians, the mafia, businessmen, and the Bombay Police are depicted. Also, it focuses on contentious issues like the dynamic between lawmakers and lawbreakers, religious violence, staged encounters, and bribery in the entertainment sector. Because of its distinctive portrayals of cities, people, topics, and plot lines, and because of its narrative approach, the series Sacred Games stands out from the competition. An extensive content analysis technique is employed for each episode of Sacred Games to comprehend the web series as a whole. This research paper examines the distinctive elements of the Indian television series Sacred Games, including its unique storytelling style, character depiction, and storyline structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bulk of scholarship on police intervention in enforcing COVID-19 pandemic-imposed restrictions focuses on police misconduct, securitisation, human rights, police preparedness, and legitimacy, but empirical research on police corruption during the restriction in Nigeria is sparse despite reports of pervasive police extortion and bribery. Thus, this study fills the academic gap by examining the dynamics of police predation and corruption during the enforcement in Nigeria. With interview data, I uniquely examined the intervention from the purview of predatory policing – an aspect of policing that is understudied in the context of COVID-19 policing despite its relevance in contemporary discourse on social control. Evidence indicates that, as COVID-19 policing characterised predation in Nigeria, the embedded problems of police corruption revolve around unresolved police institutional challenges and police-public connivance that results from moral decadence, thereby portending gloomy implications for law enforcement and society. Therefore, advancing and implementing police reforms, addressing moral corruption, and resolving widespread socioeconomic problems are very critical in the effective policing and containment of future public health crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]