DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37463.v1
title: Preventing and Controlling Corporate Crime: The Dual Role of Corporate Boards and Legal Sanctions, United States, 1996-2013
title: Version 1

description: This project consists of secondary analysis material (syntax only, no data). The original study that the material pertains to examines two distinct but related types of corporate crime prevention and control mechanisms--one that rests on firm governance (specifically, the Board of Directors) and the other on formal legal interventions. Specifically, the study examines whether (ceteris paribus) firms with more gender diversity on their boards are less involved in offending than firms whose boards are less diverse and whether changes in board diversity over time affect firm offending patterns. Of additional interest is how firms respond to legal discovery and punishment. Do they change their governance structures (i.e., become more diverse) due to formal legal discovery? Are firms generally deterred from reoffending (recidivism) when discovered or does deterrence depend on the government's response to offenders? In particular, are certain regimes (criminal, civil, or regulatory) more successful at crime control than others? Relevant data are collected from a variety of secondary sources, including corporate financial, statistical, and governance information. These data are then linked to cases of corporate offending (accounting fraud, bribery, environmental and anti-competitive) for 3,327 US based companies between 1996 and 2013. Analyses-NIJ-5.21.2019--2-.do: Syntax (Stata) used to create type of offense count; domain of processing (civil, criminal, regulatory); offense distribution (by corporate year), female board membership (count and percent); Reoffending (by enforcement type and governance characteristics).
description: The stated aims of this project are to build a unique panel database from publicly available secondary sources that unites data on firm characteristics, corporate boards, and corporate offending, as measured by government response to violators in the form of enforcement actions.
description: This project involved the secondary analysis of existing corporate boards and legal sanctions data that is available through public sources. The study uses Standard and Poor's (S and P) 1500 indices to identify the largest US publicly traded companies each year between 1996 and 2013. Utilizing various databases available to researchers through university consortium access agreements (ExecuComp, RiskMetrics, KLD, CRSP, and Compustat), relevant variables were extracted and integrated into a company characteristics database. We structure the data by firm-year so we can track changes in corporate board characteristics and other company indicators (e.g., size, economic performance) from year-to-year. Corporate offending data are divided into three types: financial/corruption (i.e., FCPA violations), environmental, and anticompetitive. From the FCPA enforcement data, we extract enforcement actions against firms beginning in 1996 through 2013. We collected a number of enforcement attributes, such as the dates and charges of the action, case filings, and case conclusion, regime (civil, criminal, regulatory), co-defendants (how many, individual or company), case outcome, and sanctions (fine, fine amount). Researchers also extracted all enforcement actions brought against S and P firms for anti-competitive behavior using the Federal Trade Commission's and Department of Justice Antitrust Division publicized enforcement actions. Mainly inclusive of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act; Sherman Act (Section 1 and 2), and Clayton Act violations, prohibited behaviors include conspiracy to fix prices, monopolization, and other restraints of trade; unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent business practices. Violations of environmental statutes also were collected using the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database. The violations capture a wide variety of offenses, including (among others) violations of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund). We integrate the three types of offending into a separate database, structured by firm-offense. Linking the data is possible by aggregating firm-offenses by firm-year and using the common gvkey identifier.
description: Not Applicable.
description: Response Rates: Not Applicable.
description: All Standard and Poor 1500 companies, followed each year they are in index between 1996 and 2013.
description: Datasets: DS1: Preventing and Controlling Corporate Crime: The Dual Role of Corporate Boards and Legal Sanctions, United States, 1996-2013
description: All regulatory enforcement actions under the accounting and bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977. Smallest Geographic Unit: None.
description: web scrapingThis project involved the secondary analysis of existing corporate boards and legal sanctions data that is available through public sources.