Regulating Fraud in Financial Markets: Can Behavioural Designs Prevent Future Criminal Offences?

Abstract

This article explores the anatomy of three recent financial scandals and investigates how the legal system has responded to them. Furthermore, it analyses whether behavioural designs can prevent future criminal offenses. The article comes to the conclusion that the social as well as the physical environment can diminish the human propensity to commit a fraud. Moreover, misconduct was often made attractive to fraudsters by means of external rewards. Reforming performance incentives might therefore be an efficient measure to reduce deception in financial markets.

Keywords: cheating, fraud, behavioural designs, Bernard Madoff, Kweku Adoboli, LIBOR scandal

JEL Classification: K42, K22, G32, G38