The Effectiveness of White-Collar Crime Enforcement: Evidence from the War on Terror

Abstract

This paper studies the deterrent effect of criminal enforcement on white-collar criminal activities. Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a shock to the FBI's allocation of investigative resources and priorities, and variations in the Muslim population in the United States as a measure of geographic variations in the shock, I examine two questions: (1) Does the bureau's shift to counter-terrorism investigations after 9/11 lead to a reduction in the enforcement of laws targeting white-collar crime? (2) Does white-collar crime increase as a result of less oversight? Using a difference-in-differences estimation approach, I find that there is a significantly greater reduction in white-collar criminal cases referred by FBI field offices that shift their investigative focus away from white-collar crime to counter-terrorism. I also find that areas overseen by FBI field offices that shift their attention from white-collar crime to counter-terrorism experience a significantly greater increase in wire fraud, illegal insider trading activities, and fraud within financial institutions.