United Kingdom

IN 2002, the Association of British Insurers estimated that fraud alone cost the United Kingdom (UK) economy £14 billion. Estimating the cost of[Page 836] white-collar and corporate crime is a favorite pastime for researchers and policymakers as well as insurers. Invariably, these educated guesses “prove” that the cost of white-collar and corporate crime is vast, implying that the economic performance of the UK would be dramatically improved if government directed more resources to the plethora of agencies responsible for enforcing economic and social regulations. These attempts to estimate the extent of white-collar and corporate crime reflect increasing public awareness of the problem brought about by a series of high-profile scandals since the late 1970s.