Whistleblower protection: Theory and experimental evidence

Whistleblowing by employees plays a major role in uncovering corporate fraud. Recent laws and global policy recommendations aim at facilitating whistleblower protection to enhance the willingness to report and to increase the detection and deterrence of misbehavior. We study these issues in a theory-guided laboratory experiment. As expected, protecting whistleblowers leads to more reporting of misbehavior. However, the predicted improvements in detection and deterrence do not materialize in the experiment. This is mainly driven by prosecutors being less inclined to investigate upon a report when protection is in place. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved