Under pressure? Performance evaluation of police officers as an incentive to cheat

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This paper examines the use of high-powered performance-based incentives for civil servants, focusing on drug-related cases registered by the Russian police. Using an event study approach and bunching analysis, I show that the incentives arising from the performance evaluation system of police officers can significantly influence their behavior. Specifically, I find evidence suggesting that this impact can result in the manipulation of drug quantities seized by the police, moving offenders from below to above the punishment threshold. Further negative consequences of the strong performance-based incentives are inequality in the enforcement of law, prolonged sentences, and increased probability of pretrial detention. Thus, I determine that police officers are more likely to manipulate the drug quantities seized from men. I also find that the manipulation increases the probability of pretrial detention by 9% and adds one more year of incarceration, which is a 67% increase on the average sentence length without manipulation.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftJournal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Vol/bind212
Sider (fra-til)1143-1172
ISSN0167-2681
DOI
StatusUdgivet - aug. 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This paper uses a database provided by the Institute for the Rule of Law at the European University at St. Petersburg, Russia14 It contains information on almost 300,000 drug crimes reported in Russia during 2013–2014. The information is based on five forms that are created at the different stages of the investigation of a specific case and include the following data: form 1: identified crime and investigation results; form 2: socio-economic characteristics of offenders; form 3: criminal proceedings; form 4: reparation for damages and the seizure of crime objects; form 6: trial results15 ☆. I am grateful to Andreas Menzel for generous support at all stages of this project. I thank Stepan Jurajda, Randall Filer, Vasily Korovkin, Sergei Mikhalishchev, Libor Dusek, Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, Alexey Knorre, Nikolas Mittag, Jan Palguta, Daniel L. Millimet, and seminar participants at CERGE-EI, EUSP, Hunter College - CUNY and TAMU (online) for helpful discussions and comments. I also thank the two anonymous journal reviewers and the handling editor, Scott Adams, for detailed and insightful feedback. All errors remaining in this text are the responsibility of the author. This study was supported by Charles University, GAUK project No. 702218, the H2020-MSCA-RISE project GEMCLIME-2020 GA No. 681228, and CEBI, Danish National Research Foundation Grant DNRF134. Declarations of interest: None.

Funding Information:
I am grateful to Andreas Menzel for generous support at all stages of this project. I thank Stepan Jurajda, Randall Filer, Vasily Korovkin, Sergei Mikhalishchev, Libor Dusek, Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, Alexey Knorre, Nikolas Mittag, Jan Palguta, Daniel L. Millimet, and seminar participants at CERGE-EI, EUSP, Hunter College - CUNY and TAMU (online) for helpful discussions and comments. I also thank the two anonymous journal reviewers and the handling editor, Scott Adams, for detailed and insightful feedback. All errors remaining in this text are the responsibility of the author. This study was supported by Charles University, GAUK project No. 702218, the H2020-MSCA-RISE project GEMCLIME-2020 GA No. 681228, and CEBI, Danish National Research Foundation Grant DNRF134. Declarations of interest: None.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023

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