IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/italej/v9y2023i2d10.1007_s40797-022-00195-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Bankers “Crying Wolf”? Type I, Type II Errors and Deterrence in Anti-Money Laundering: The Italian Case

Author

Listed:
  • Lucia Pellegrina

    (University of Milano-Bicocca)

  • Giorgio Maio

    (University of Insubria)

  • Donato Masciandaro

    (Bocconi University and SUERF)

  • Margherita Saraceno

    (University of Pavia)

Abstract

Excessive and useless reporting, called the “crying wolf effect,” is a crucial shortcoming that any anti-money laundering (AML) design aims to address. For this reason, in recent years, AML policies in both the US and Europe have switched from a rule-based to a risk-based approach. This study theoretically and empirically investigates whether the risk-based approach delivers the expected results. The theoretical model shows that a trade-off can emerge between accuracy (fewer type-I and type-II errors) and deterrence. The empirical analysis, conducted after the risk-based approach was introduced in Italy, confirms this trade-off. More specifically, deterrence seems a priority, whereas accuracy is sacrificed. In this respect, the data suggest that Italian bankers are likely to “cry wolf.”

Suggested Citation

  • Lucia Pellegrina & Giorgio Maio & Donato Masciandaro & Margherita Saraceno, 2023. "Are Bankers “Crying Wolf”? Type I, Type II Errors and Deterrence in Anti-Money Laundering: The Italian Case," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(2), pages 587-615, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:italej:v:9:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s40797-022-00195-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s40797-022-00195-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40797-022-00195-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40797-022-00195-2?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. Norman Mugarura, 2011. "The institutional framework against money laundering and its underlying predicate crimes," Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 19(2), pages 174-194, May.
    2. Robert Michael Axelrod, 2017. "Criminality and suspicious activity reports," Journal of Financial Crime, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(3), pages 461-471, July.
    3. Marco Arnone & Leonardo Borlini, 2010. "International anti‐money laundering programs," Journal of Money Laundering Control, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(3), pages 226-271, July.
    4. Unger Brigitte & van Waarden Frans, 2009. "How to Dodge Drowning in Data? Rule- and Risk-Based Anti Money Laundering Policies Compared," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 953-985, December.
    5. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    6. Sisira Dharmasri Jayasekara, 2020. "How effective are the current global standards in combating money laundering and terrorist financing?," Journal of Money Laundering Control, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(2), pages 257-267, July.
    7. Dalla Pellegrina Lucia & Masciandaro Donato, 2009. "The Risk-Based Approach in the New European Anti-Money Laundering Legislation: A Law and Economics View," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 931-952, December.
    8. Matteo Rizzolli & Margherita Saraceno, 2013. "Better that ten guilty persons escape: punishment costs explain the standard of evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 395-411, June.
    9. B. Unger & F. van Waarden, 2009. "Attempts to Dodge Drowning in Data: Rule- and Risk-Based Anti Money Laundering Policies Compared," Working Papers 09-19, Utrecht School of Economics.
    10. Norman Mugarura, 2011. "The institutional framework against money laundering and its underlying predicate crimes," Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 19(2), pages 174-194, May.
    11. Black, Julia & Baldwin, Robert, 2010. "Really responsive risk-based regulation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 27632, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Raffaella Barone & Donato Masciandaro, 2019. "Cryptocurrency or usury? Crime and alternative money laundering techniques," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 233-254, April.
    13. Richard John Lowe, 2017. "Anti-money laundering – the need for intelligence," Journal of Financial Crime, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(3), pages 472-479, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Donato Masciandaro & Margherita Saraceno, 2020. "Are Bankers "Crying Wolf"? The Risk-Based Approach to Money-Laundering Regulation and its Effects," Working Papers 444, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2021.
    2. Raffaella Barone & Donato Masciandaro, 2011. "Organized crime, money laundering and legal economy: theory and simulations," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 115-142, August.
    3. Joras Ferwerda & Ioana Sorina Deleanu & Brigitte Unger, 2019. "Strategies to avoid blacklisting: The case of statistics on money laundering," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-13, June.
    4. Mario Gara & Claudio Pauselli, 2020. "Looking at ‘Crying Wolf’ from a Different Perspective: An Attempt at Detecting Banks Under- and Over-Reporting of Suspicious Transactions," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 6(2), pages 299-324, July.
    5. Loayza, Norman & Villa, Edgar & Misas, Martha, 2019. "Illicit activity and money laundering from an economic growth perspective: A model and an application to Colombia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 442-487.
    6. Rasmus Ingemann Tuffveson Jensen & Joras Ferwerda & Christian Remi Wewer, 2023. "Searching for Smurfs: Testing if Money Launderers Know Alert Thresholds," Papers 2309.12704, arXiv.org.
    7. Stefan Haigner & Friedrich Schneider & Florian Wakolbinger, 2012. "Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism: A Survey," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 65, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Besley, Timothy & Meads, Neil & Surico, Paolo, 2014. "The incidence of transaction taxes: Evidence from a stamp duty holiday," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 61-70.
    9. B. Unger & F. van Waarden, 2009. "Attempts to Dodge Drowning in Data: Rule- and Risk-Based Anti Money Laundering Policies Compared," Working Papers 09-19, Utrecht School of Economics.
    10. Martin Beraja, 2017. "Counterfactual Equivalence in Macroeconomics," 2017 Meeting Papers 1400, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Jeanne, Olivier & Korinek, Anton, 2019. "Managing credit booms and busts: A Pigouvian taxation approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 2-17.
    12. Fernando Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Roberto Robatto, 2019. "Cost of Inflation in Inventory Theoretical Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 206-226, April.
    13. Régis Barnichon & Geert Mesters, 2020. "Optimal policy perturbations," Economics Working Papers 1716, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    14. Christopher Conlon & Julie Holland Mortimer, 2021. "Empirical properties of diversion ratios," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(4), pages 693-726, December.
    15. Ugo Colombino & Nizamul Islam, 2021. "Combining microsimulation and optimization to identify optimal universalistic tax-transfer rule," LISER Working Paper Series 2021-06, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    16. David S. Lee & Pauline Leung & Christopher J. O’Leary & Zhuan Pei & Simon Quach, 2021. "Are Sufficient Statistics Necessary? Nonparametric Measurement of Deadweight Loss from Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(S2), pages 455-506.
    17. Pascal Michaillat & Emmanuel Saez, 2015. "The Optimal Use of Government Purchases for Stabilization," NBER Working Papers 21322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Islam, Nizamul & Colombino, Ugo, 2018. "The case for NIT+FT in Europe. An empirical optimal taxation exercise," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 38-69.
    19. Sumit Agarwal & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Neale Mahoney & Strö & Johannes bel, 2015. "Do Banks Pass Through Credit Expansions? The Marginal Profitability of Consumer Lending During the Great Recession," CESifo Working Paper Series 5521, CESifo.
    20. Sanz Labrador, Ismael & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2013. "Política fiscal y crecimiento económico: consideraciones microeconómicas y relaciones macroeconómicas," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 5367, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Anti-money laundering; Suspicious transaction reporting; Reporting test; Type-I error; Type-II error; Deterrence; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law
    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior

    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:spr:italej:v:9:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s40797-022-00195-2. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.