Whistleblowing and compliance in the judicial hierarchy

• Autores: Deborah Beim, Alexander V. Hirsch, Jonathan P. Kastellec
• Localización: American Journal of Political Science, ISSN-e 1540-5907, Vol. 58, Nº. 4, 2014, págs. 904-918
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • One way that principals can overcome the problem of informational asymmetries in hierarchical organizations is to enable whistleblowing. We evaluate how whistleblowing influences compliance in the judicial hierarchy. We present a formal model in which a potential whistleblower may, at some cost, signal noncompliance by a lower court to a higher court. A key insight of the model is that whistleblowing is most informative when it is rare. While the presence of a whistleblower can increase compliance by lower courts, beyond a certain point blowing the whistle is counterproductive and actually reduces compliance. Moreover, a whistleblower who is a �perfect ally� of the higher court (in terms of preferences) blows the whistle too often. Our model shows an important connection between the frequency of whistleblowing and the effectiveness of whistleblowing as a threat to induce compliance in hierarchical organizations.