2020年经济学人 行贿的代价(2)（在线收听）

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，这并未考虑到被抓的可能性。美国的反贿赂法——《反海外腐败法》有43年的历史，该法案的执行力度不断加大，而且其他国家也通过了类似的法律，致使被抓捕的行贿案件也随之增多。斯坦福法学院的数据显示，自2007至09年金融危机以来，《反海外腐败法》的案件数量急剧上升。唐纳德·特朗普总统批评《反海外腐败法》阻碍了美国公司在海外的发展。在他的领导下，案件数量有所下降，但仍远高于历史水平。2016至2019年间，违反《反海外腐败法》的罚款总额为140亿美元，是截至2004年至2007年的的罚款总额的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.

研究的发起人还考察了之前针对贿赂研究得出的11个假设。他们发现有一些假设可以支持得出的结论，比如说，当公司期望得到更大的利益时，他们会进行更大额的行贿，在更多公开披露政客收入来源的方面，行贿的净收益更小。

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.

但是他们打破了其他的一些公知。最引人注目的是，他们发现民主和腐败之间并无关联。这对“图洛克悖论”提出了挑战，图洛克悖论认为，在民主国家，公司会因较小数额的行贿而逍遥法外，因为政客和官员对制度的约束不如专制国家，也就无法获得那么多的利益。这样的调查结果无疑会引起腐败调查人员和无良高管的兴趣。