That, however, does not take account of the chances of getting caught. These have risen as enforcement of America’s 43-year-old anti-bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), has been stepped up and other countries have passed similar laws. The number of FCPA cases is up sharply since the financial crisis of 2007 to 09, according to Stanford Law School. It has dipped a bit under President Donald Trump, who has criticised the FCPA for hobbling American firms overseas, but remains well above historic levels. Total fines for FCPA violations were $14bn in 2016 to 19, 48 times as much as in the four years to 2007.
然而，這并未考慮到被抓的可能性。美國的反賄賂法——《反海外腐敗法》有43年的歷史，該法案的執(zhí)行力度不斷加大，而且其他國家也通過了類似的法律，致使被抓捕的行賄案件也隨之增多。斯坦福法學院的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，自2007至09年金融危機以來，《反海外腐敗法》的案件數(shù)量急劇上升。唐納德·特朗普總統(tǒng)批評《反海外腐敗法》阻礙了美國公司在海外的發(fā)展。在他的領導下，案件數(shù)量有所下降，但仍遠高于歷史水平。2016至2019年間，違反《反海外腐敗法》的罰款總額為140億美元，是截至2004年至2007年的的罰款總額的48倍。
The authors also tested 11 hypotheses that emerged from past studies of bribery. They found support for some, for instance that firms pay larger bribes when they expect to receive larger benefits, and that the net benefits of bribing are smaller in places with more public disclosure of politicians’ sources of income.
研究的發(fā)起人還考察了之前針對賄賂研究得出的11個假設。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)有一些假設可以支持得出的結論，比如說，當公司期望得到更大的利益時，他們會進行更大額的行賄，在更多公開披露政客收入來源的方面，行賄的凈收益更小。
But they punctured other bits of received wisdom. Most striking, they found no link between democracy and graft. This challenges the “Tullock paradox”, which holds that firms can get away with smaller bribes in democracies because politicians and officials have less of a lock on the system than those in autocratic countries, and so cannot extract as much rent. Such findings will doubtless be of interest to corruption investigators and unscrupulous executives alike.
但是他們打破了其他的一些公知。最引人注目的是，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)民主和腐敗之間并無關聯(lián)。這對“圖洛克悖論”提出了挑戰(zhàn)，圖洛克悖論認為，在民主國家，公司會因較小數(shù)額的行賄而逍遙法外，因為政客和官員對制度的約束不如專制國家，也就無法獲得那么多的利益。這樣的調(diào)查結果無疑會引起腐敗調(diào)查人員和無良高管的興趣。
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