arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

The Hidden Costs of Whistleblower Protection

Niklas Wallmeier & Timo Promann

Review of Law & Economics2025https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2024-0075article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.44

What the paper says

Abstract We conduct a laboratory experiment to analyze the influence of whistleblower protection on the cooperative behavior between a manager and an employee. Before taking part in a trust game with her employee, a manager has the opportunity to embezzle money at the expense of a third party. The employee observes her decision and may trigger an investigation by blowing the whistle. The treatments vary with respect to immunity and anonymity for the whistleblower. We compare misbehavior, reporting, and cooperative behavior across the treatments. The results suggest that whistleblower protection could deter wrongdoing, but could also have a detrimental effect on cooperation in organizations if it increases the probability for whistleblowing.

3 citations

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2024-0075

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{niklas2025,
  title        = {{The Hidden Costs of Whistleblower Protection}},
  author       = {Niklas Wallmeier & Timo Promann},
  journal      = {Review of Law & Economics},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2024-0075},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

The Hidden Costs of Whistleblower Protection

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.44

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.32 × 0.4 = 0.13
M · momentum0.57 × 0.15 = 0.09
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.