IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v77y2024ics0144818823000340.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal pressure and judicial decisions: Evidence from financial penalties for official corruption in China

Author

Listed:
  • Chu, Hongli
  • Sun, Shengmin
  • Wei, Jian

Abstract

The connection between court resources and judicial behavior has long been acknowledged. This article examines the linkages between local governments' fiscal pressures and Chinese judges' decisions on financial sanctions. Based on data from criminal verdicts of official corruption and county government expenditures, this study finds that Chinese judges are more likely to impose financial penalties, especially fines, when judicial expenditures in a region are low. The conclusion remains unchanged after accounting for the endogeneity problem using the age of the county party secretary and the per capita financial expenditure lagged for one period as instrumental variables. Finally, the imprisonment penalty without increasing revenue is used to test the placebo, and no effect of fiscal pressure on the imprisonment penalty is found.

Suggested Citation

  • Chu, Hongli & Sun, Shengmin & Wei, Jian, 2024. "Fiscal pressure and judicial decisions: Evidence from financial penalties for official corruption in China," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:77:y:2024:i:c:s0144818823000340
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2023.106156
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818823000340
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106156?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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption punishment; Financial penalty; Judicial expenditure; Fiscal pressure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • P37 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Legal

    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:77:y:2024:i:c:s0144818823000340. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.