MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/5 Financial Fraud A Literature Review Arjan Reurink MPIfG Discussion Paper MPIfG Discussion Paper Arjan Reurink Financial Fraud: A Literature Review MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/5 Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung, Köln Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne May 2016 MPIfG Discussion Paper ISSN 0944-2073 (Print) ISSN 1864-4325 (Internet) © 2016 by the author About the author Arjan Reurink is a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne. Email:
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[email protected] Reurink: Financial Fraud: A Literature Review iii Abstract This paper describes the empirical universe of financial fraud as it has been documented in the academic literature. More specifically, it describes the different forms of fraudulent behavior in the context of financial market activities, the prevalence and consequences of such behavior as identified by previous research, and the economic and market structures that scholars believe facilitate it. To structure the discussion, a conceptual distinction is made between three types of financial fraud: financial statement fraud, financial scams, and fraudulent financial mis-selling. What emerges is a picture of financial fraud as a complex phenomenon that can take very different