Moral & incentives : should corruption whistleblowing be rewarded?

Tendo como objeto o Projeto de Lei n. 857/2012, aprovado pela Câmara Legislativa do Distrito Federal em 2013, este artigo analisa o princípio da compensação pecuniária ao cidadão que denuncia a corrupção, sob a ótica da Teoria de Desenhos de Mecanismos e do Direito. Um modelo de Teoria da Decisão estabelece um potencial conflito para o cidadão entre a satisfação com o benefício monetário auferido pela denúncia (“incentivo pecuniário”) e a insatisfação com o sentimento de estar sendo pago para exercer seu dever cívico (“desincentivo moral”). Mostra-se que, quando há heterogeneidade na sociedade, o efeito do incentivo pecuniário predomina e a introdução da compensação é benéfica para a sociedade. Além disso, propomos uma alteração no PL que transforma o desincentivo moral em incentivo à dedicação ao controle da corrupção. Finalmente, por meio da análise de leis e de estudos de casos, confirmamos que, além de compatível com o ordenamento jurídico brasileiro, esse mecanismo já é efetivamente aplicado em diferentes situações no país.This article presents an applied mechanism design and a legal analysis of a Bill proposed into law by the Brazilian Federal District House of Representatives in 2013. The Bill offers monetary rewards for citizens that denounce corruption. In our decision-theoretic model, corruption control may give the citizens utility due to their civic responsibility feeling. The main trade-off brought about by the reward mechanism is that, by receiving compensation, citizens’ civic impulse to dedicate effort to curb corruption may be reduced. However, our model shows that if society is heterogeneous enough, the monetary reward motive prevails and the Bill fosters social involvement. Furthermore, we propose a mechanism that transforms the moral dissatisfaction of receiving money into a moral incentive to dedicate to corruption control. Finally, a careful analysis of the Law and of a series of case studies in Brazil suggest that such a mechanism does not violate the Constitution and, furthermore, has actually been used under different forms in the Brazilian legal system

The Inclusiveness of Exclusion

We extend Armstrong’s (1996) result on exclusion in multi-dimensional screening models in two key ways, providing support for the view that this result is quite generic and applicable to many different markets. First, we relax the strong technical assumptions he imposed on preferences and consumer types. Second, we extend the result beyond the monopolistic market structure to generalized oligopoly settings with entry. We also analyse applications to several quite different settings: credit markets, automobile industry, research grants, the regulation of a monopolist with unknown demand and cost functions, and involuntary unemployment in the labor market.Multidimensional screening; exclusion; regulation of amonopoly; involuntary unemployment