Is financial fraud becoming a bigger or smaller problem over time? Current empirical approaches to this question generate mixed inferences. As an alternative, I use two theoretical constructs that isolate several factors that motivate fraud, and use them to consider the impact of technological and wealth changes over time. Some changes, such as an increase in anonymity in some financial transactions, facilitate new fraud innovations and increase the possibility of fraud. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic shutdown has fostered major disruptions in relative demands and organizational capital that also increase the likelihood of fraud over the next few years. Viewed over a longer time scale, however, the majority of technological and wealth changes seem likely to increase the use and effectiveness of reputational capital, third-party enforcement, and ethical motivations as fraud deterrents. I predict that, on net, these changes will drive a long-term decrease in the incidence of fraud.

We examine the penalties imposed on the 585 firms targeted by SEC enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation from 1978–2002, which we track through November 15, 2005. The penalties imposed on firms through the legal system average only $23.5 million per firm. The penalties imposed by the market, in contrast, are huge. Our point estimate of the reputational penalty—which we define as the expected loss in the present value of future cash flows due to lower sales and higher contracting and financing costs—is over 7.5 times the sum of all penalties imposed through the legal and regulatory system. For each dollar that a firm misleadingly inflates its market value, on average, it loses this dollar when its misconduct is revealed, plus an additional $3.08. Of this additional loss, $0.36 is due to expected legal penalties and $2.71 is due to lost reputation. In firms that survive the enforcement process, lost reputation is even greater at $3.83. In the cross section, the reputation loss is positively related to measures of the firm's reliance on implicit contracts. This evidence belies a widespread belief that financial misrepresentation is disciplined lightly. To the contrary, reputation losses impose substantial penalties for cooking the books.

During 2005 to 2007, the SEC ordered a pilot program in which one‐third of the Russell 3000 index were arbitrarily chosen as pilot stocks and exempted from short‐sale price tests. Pilot firms’ discretionary accruals and likelihood of marginally beating earnings targets decrease during this period, and revert to pre‐experiment levels when the program ends. After the program starts, pilot firms are more likely to be caught for fraud initiated before the program, and their stock returns better incorporate earnings information. These results indicate that short selling, or its prospect, curbs earnings management, helps detect fraud, and improves price efficiency.