From “Light Crime but Severe Penalty” to “Punishment Fits Crime”: An Empirical Study on Embezzlement and Bribery Crime in China

Huabing Li

European Master in Law and Economics Midterm Meeting conference paper; LLB in Law (minor) thesis

This paper empirically examines how a leniency legal revision from "light crime but severe punishment" to "punishment fits crime"—exemplified by the 2016 new Judicial Interpretation of embezzlement and bribery crime in China—impacts the realization of justice and deterrence purpose of criminal law. Employing a novel panel data of embezzlement crimes, bribery crimes, and misappropriation of public funds crimes in 296 Chinese cities from 2001 to 2020 and using the generalized difference-in-differences model to explore the sentence variations of these crimes before and after the Judicial Interpretation came into effect, this paper finds that the Judicial Interpretation significantly reduces the level of punishment, which is not only because the same crime activity is sentenced lower under the new standard, but also due to the fact that "punishment fits crime" can prevent offenders from engaging in opportunistic behaviour. In addition, while the Judicial Interpretation significantly increases the number of crimes, this does not imply that the efforts toward "punishment fits crime" condone corruption anddo harm to public goods, but achieve substantial improvements in the effectiveness of social governance. The conclusion suggests that the deterrence of criminal law is not necessarily diminished by a relaxation of retributivism, and may provide key evidence for similar criminal law reform of "punishment fits crime" in many countries.

[Conference slides]