Economics of Corporate Crime and Criminal Liability 学校：中国社会科学院研究生院 申请学位：经济学博士 专业：政治经济学 系别：经济学 指导老师：张曙光教授（社科院经济所研究员） 内容摘要 公司犯罪和刑事责任被作为一个经济学问题提出来，是1990s年代初期美国颁布《公司刑事审判指引》以后的事情，这个指引为公司实施的加害行为规定了极其严厉的刑罚，从而引起了美国法学界和经济学界的热烈讨论，讨论的问题集中在：1）给定实施犯罪的直接行为人不能全部享受犯罪收益，行为人为什么要选择在公司契约连接中实施犯罪？哪些因素促成这个公司犯罪，而其他的公司没有犯罪？2）给定公司存在犯罪可能，损害的计量应该包含哪些内容；尤其是公司或者它的代理人对社会施加的损害（而不单纯是对受害人个人施加的损害）应该包含哪些内容。特别地，公司及其代理人的犯罪行为是否存在溢出效应，如果存在，对第三方的损害如何计量，即我们应该如何看待公司及其代理人实施犯罪的外部性问题。3）给定公司存在犯罪的可能，或者已经犯罪，惩罚应该施加给哪一个主体，一个突出的问题是，如果对公司施加制裁，可能会使很多无关的个人增加成本，这样做，是否存在效率基础。或者我们还可以采用其它责任形式。4）给定公司存在犯罪的可能，哪一种责任形式可以达到社会最优防范，可供选择的责任形式包括，公司刑事责任、公司民事责任、管理者刑事责任、管理者民事责任以及一些混合责任形态。 作者回顾的文献表明，尽管国内外一些法学家和经济学家就上述问题提出了角度不同的观点，但总体上没有在一个标准经济学理论框架下解决存在的疑问。另一方面，中国公司犯罪数量的上升，以及法学界对上述问题的含混讨论，都说明对这样一个传统上由法学理论来解决的问题，必须另辟蹊径。实际上，即便是我们不怀疑法学理论解决这些问题的能力，面对公司犯罪这么一个行为群，经济学也不应该保持沉默。 在契约理论的假设下，论文试图用一个统一的逻辑框架，对公司犯罪和法律责任选择做出解释。按照论文的假说，公司是一组契约的连接，契约当事人在预期到他不会承担他的犯罪行为所带来的全部后果时，犯罪就会发生。起初作者假定不存在公司犯罪这样一个法律构造，即是说，法律不针对公司追究刑事责任，此时，公司实施的加害行为，可以被看作是公司内部人从事的一个风险更高的项目，这导致财富转移。因为在公司契约连接中能够转嫁风险，一些内部人因而获得了实施加害行为的主要动力。接着，作者考虑到，更大风险的活动将导致契约剩余的减少，如果契约当事人发现另一方当事人会犯罪，但犯罪带来的损失不会把契约剩余降低到零，契约就不会破裂。这样一个均衡过程伴随着贝叶斯信号机制，一直会持续下去。 在证明并运用这个假说之前，还有几个前提需要加以说明，1）作为一组契连接，公司形式的经济组织与一般企业法人存在的区别，这个区别帮助我们认识公司的本质。本文认为，管理职能作为一种要素被分离出来，取得了和其它要素一样的独立的缔约地位是公司的最重要特征，另外，在公司中，各方利益主体不仅分配未来收益，还分配风险。因为具有这些特征，研究公司犯罪与研究一般企业法人犯罪具有不同的内容。2）在公司外围观察，公司是一组契约连接，但在公司内部向外观察，公司各方利害相关人都分别在自己的要素市场上进行行为选择，比如，管理者在经理市场决定均衡工资，股东在资本市场根据均衡收益水平决定投资，产品市场决定的均衡价格和数量反映公司绩效，等等；这个特征使公司作为一组契约连接的内容更加丰满。 有了这些前提以后，希望进入公司契约联接的主体可以获得竞争性契约价格。该价格中包含了有关其它契约相对人实施加害行为的信号。关于公司犯罪激励的模型化研究表明，在公司犯罪与不犯罪无差异的点上，拥有控制权的剩余索取权利主体会倾向于实施犯罪，而在存在个人收益的情况下，固定清偿权利主体比剩余索取权利主体更容易犯罪，相反，如果不存在个人收益，固定清偿权利主体会更不容易实施加害行为。 给定公司在实施加害行为方面存在激励，针对公司的刑事责任，是否具有效率基础，取决于公司的契约构造在哪些方面与刑事责任的合意性一致。作者首先分析了刑事责任的合意性，为了实现最优防范，司法机构必须首先确定犯罪人的收益，由于犯罪收益经常无法直接得到，犯罪人的主观意图和致损程度就成了两个可以获得的有效信号。刑事责任在获得信号方面具备的优势包括：1）更强的信息收集能力，这由公共执行机构的权利和财力来保证；2）节约执法成本，成本的增加由集体行动问题和搭便车问题造成；除此而外，加害行为通过信号提示产生的正外部性，也要求用公共产品提供方式供给犯罪信息，而公共提供一般只能由刑事责任机制完成。当考虑的问题限于公司的时候，信息收集能力显得格外重要，因为更多以公司名义实施的犯罪，不仅无法直接确定犯罪收益，而且无法确定实施犯罪行为的个人。另一方面，关于连带责任在节约执法成本方面的讨论也完全适用于公司刑事责任的合意性。 进一步考虑最优防范机制，我们发现法律能够发挥作用的领域是有限的，当事人会在行为选择时考虑别人的犯罪类别，这提醒人们，防范公司犯罪的方式更多地应该依靠公司内部治理，因为我们可以把内部治理结构看作是公司各方利害相关人签订的契约。这样，针对公司犯罪的防范问题，就变成了寻找公司治理结构与法律责任尤其是刑事责任的合理匹配点，作者注意到，治理结构的完善有助于最大限度发挥市场机制作用，法律责任的存在则能够过滤不良行为，过滤其所以必要，是因为治理结构无论多么完善，都存在信息问题，一些不能确知、无法预见的信息会使治理结构达不到应有的效果。鉴于这种匹配关系十分重要，论文还尝试用局部均衡的观念加以分析和说明。 作为对上述局部均衡的一个应用，作者解释了各国公司治理结构差异和公司刑事责任差异的原因，解释这个现象把我们带入到关于交易习惯——交易费用——的讨论。作为另一个重要应用，论文还分析了我国与公司犯罪有关的一些现象的成因，指出立法方面和公司治理结构方面存在的问题促使我国公司犯罪数量的增加和危害后果的加重。最后，论文还按照前面的理论逻辑，讨论了我国公司犯罪今后的趋势和特征。 本文第一部分集中精力厘清问题，并回顾针对这些问题已有文献的贡献，在对文献进行批判的基础上提出自己的假说。第二部分讨论公司犯罪激励，作为应用，我们讨论了中国刑事立法中关于单位犯罪主观方面的一些规定。第三章讨论针对公司施加刑事责任的合意性，作者首先分析了刑事责任的合意性，然后判断公司的哪些特征符合了或者增加了上述合意性。第四章讨论公司治理结构与法律责任的匹配，分析了在防范公司犯罪方面，市场机制和法律机制如何共同发挥作用。第五章运用已有结论分析中国公司犯罪的现状，并指出今后这一行为群的发展趋势。综合起来说，第二章说明公司犯罪作为一种行为群存在的经济学基础，第三章证明如何用法律概念构造这个行为群，才能使这种构造具有经济学上的效率基础，第四章让当事人同时面对法律责任和市场机制，最后一章是用实践验证理论分析框架。 Abstract It is after the Guide for the Corporate Criminal Trial imposing severe punishment for harmful conduct by corporations was enacted by US government in early 1990s, that the corporate crime and the criminal liability emerged as an economic issue for the first time. Inevitably, it stirred up discussion among jurisprudents and economists. Topics concerned mainly focus on: 1) Given that the immediate offender is not the full beneficiary of the crime, why would the criminal choose to commit that crime in the content of corporate contract series, what factors induce this corporation, but not others, to commit that crime? 2) Given the possibility of corporate crime, what should be included in the measurement of the damages arising from the crime, especially the damages by the corporations or their agents on the society (not just to the victim alone). Particularly, whether the spillover effect exists in the criminal behavior of the corporations or their agents. Were it the case, how to determine damages on the third party. In other words, what would be our view on the externalities of the crime by the corporations or their agents. 3) Given the possibility of corporate crime, or the fact that the crime has already been conducted, who should be the bearer of the punishment. More importantly, punishing the corporation as a whole would probably cause some innocent people to tolerate increased cost. Under such situation, the problem further extends to whether the efficiency base still function. Or, there might be other forms of liability available. 4) Given the fact that the crime has commit, or there is the possibility of corporate crime, which form of liability would achieve the highest efficiency. The forms of liability include: corporate criminal liability, corporate civil liability, managerial criminal liability, managerial civil liability, and other mixed forms of liabilities. Our retrospective documentaries indicate that nobody has solved this issue within the standard economic framework in spite of opinions of jurisprudents and economists from various points of view. On the other hand, the increased of corporate crime in China, along with the ambiguous discussion in the jurisprudence, also necessitates the new approaches as opposed to the traditional jurisprudential theories. Actually, facing such a behavior group as corporate crime, economists should not keep silence even though there is no the excuse to question the ability of jurisprudence. In order to work out the reason for corporate crime and the appropriate legal liability should be attached for the harmful behavior conducted, a unified logical framework should be implemented under the contract theory hypothesis. In the hypothesis, corporation is a contract series; when the contractor does not assume full liability for its criminal behavior, crime is likely to incur. Initially, a legal structure without corporate crime is provided, in other words, law itself will not enforce criminal liability to the corporation. Any harmful conduct by corporation, which would entail wealth transfer, is viewed as a higher risky project engaged by insiders. The transferability of risk through the contract chain constitutes the main incentive for insiders to commit the crime. Then, accounting for the reduction of the contract residual from riskier project, when the contractor realizes that the counterpart would commit the crime, but the corresponding damage would not shrink the contract residual to zero anyway, the contract would not be broken. Such a balance procedure would continue accompanying with the “yields” mechanism. Before proving and applying this hypothesis, some assumptions have to be made: 1) as a series of contract, difference in economic arrangement exists between the corporation and normal company legal entity, which help us to understand the nature of corporation. In this article, it is argued that the independent contractual position of managerial function as that of other factors, resulting from being isolated as an element, is the most important characteristic of corporation. In addition, not only the future benefit but also the risks involved are allocated among all relevant interest parties. Due to these attributes, research on the corporate crime will have different implication from that of normal legal entity crime. 2) Observed externally, corporation is a contract series. But seen from inside to outside, all interest parties will choose their behavior based on their own factor market. For an instance, managers will determine the equilibrium compensation in the management market, shareholders will make investment decision in the capital market, while the equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity deduced from product market reflect corporation performance, etc.; this characteristics further enriched the content of corporation as series of contract. Providing assumptions above, entities intending to enter the contract chain could receive competitive contractual price. This price has already incorporate information on the harmful behavior that counterpart might conduct. Model research on corporate crime incentive suggests that residual claim entity having control power will tend to commit the crime at the indifference point of crime/non-crime. In the case that there has private benefit, fixed-pay entity is more apt to crime than the residual claim entity. Conversely, if no private benefit, fix-pay claim entity would be more oppose to the harmful conduct. Given that there is incentive for corporation to commit harmful behavior, whether the efficiency base exists as to the criminal liability of corporation depends on which aspect of contractual structure is consistent with the suitability of criminal liability. Logically, the suitability of the criminal liability is analyzed upfront. In order to achieve the optimal prevention, legislation organizations have to first determine the benefit of the criminal. However, it is usually difficult to be obtained directly. Instead, the subjective intention and the damage extent become two effective signals accessible. The advantages on information collection relating to criminal liability include: 1) stronger ability to gather information, which is assured by the power and financial position of public enforcement organizations; 2) Cost saving, because the increased cost results from the collective-action and free-rider problem; besides, the positive externalities generated through information reminder also require the provision of criminal information with public product supply approach. However, the public supply could only be achieved under the criminal liability mechanism. When the scope limits to corporations, the information collection ability becomes especially important in that more and more crime commit on behalf of company not only hard to count the benefit directly but also difficult to ascertain the particular person guilty. On the other hand, discussion on the collective liability in the cost saving is perfectly in line with the suitability of corporate criminal liability. Exploring the optimal prevention mechanism further, it is found that the areas that law could function properly are very limited. The notion that offender will take the counterpart’s action into account reminds us that approaches to prevent corporate crime should more rely on the internal governance, since the internal governance structure could be viewed as a contract between all relevant interest parties. Hence, pertinent to the corporate crime prevention, the critical task is to find out the logical match between the corporation government structure and the legal liability, more specific, the criminal liability. As a node for sound match, “two penalty principle” enables the law to prevent under or over investment. Looked respectively, the improvement on governance structure is very helpful to maximize the function of market mechanism, the existence of legal liability could filter any harmful behavior. The reason why this cleanse is so necessary is that no matter how complete is the governance structure, information problem always exists somewhere, some might not be able to be ascertain, unexpected information will influence the supposed function of governance structure. Considering the outstanding importance of this matching, partial balance notion is tried for analysis and explanation. To expand the corporation partial balance notion, the discussion on corporation criminal liability goes further. First, in the discussion above, corporation is considered as economic organization with constant internal contractual structure. As extension, this hypothesis has to be relaxed to analyze the effect of existed legal liability on current corporate organization structure. Intuitively, legal liability has changed the cost-return expectation of contractor, the internal contractual structure of the corporation will therefore modify accordingly. As shown in the analysis, comparing the liability imposed on the corporation with that exerted on insider, the relative heaviness of the punishment is an influential factor. As another extension, the distinction among countries in terms of the governance structure and legal liability is an issue worth attention as well. According to our analysis, a misleading deduct, that the governance structure among countries tends to be the same due to its contractual characteristic, could often be found. In fact, not only large difference of governance structure, but also the premiums that external investors are willing to pay for the structure, exist among countries. As a result, the legal liability imposed would differ for the harmful conducts carried out by corporations. To explain this fact, we are brought into the discussion on transaction habit-transaction cost. Our conclusion states that legal liability and governance structure will develop along the minimum cost path and eventually form governance structure and legal liability matching with dramatic difference due to the diversified transaction habit among countries. In this article, the first part endeavors to clarify the issues concerned, and points out our own hypothesis derived from the critics on contribution of existing documentaries. Discussion on the corporate crime incentive is presented in the second part. As an application, regulations in Chinese Criminal Law with respect to the subjective aspect of corporate crime are examined. The third part goes to the suitability for imposition of criminal liability on corporations. Having analyzed the suitability of criminal liability, we further determine which characteristic conform or enhance this suitability. Then, matching between the corporate governance and legal liability is considered in the fourth chapter, concerned about the way that the market mechanism and legal mechanism could operate mutually to prevent corporate crime. The fifth part expands some properties of internal balance theory, illustrates the way that legal liability affect the forms of economic organization, and some possible reasons for the difference in the characteristics of corporate governance and legal liability among countries. To summarize, the second part finds out the economic base for the existence of corporate crime as a behavior group, the third part demonstrates how to structure this behavior group with legal concepts, while the offender is encountered with legal liability and market mechanism simultaneously in the fourth part, finally, the future development for corporate governance and legal liability is studied. As practical application, some relevant issues in China are addressed in every part.