This study aims to assess banks’ compliance in reporting suspicious transactions. It does so by estimating an econometric model on the suspicious transaction reports (STRs) filed by individual Italian banks from each of the provincial districts they operate in. Regressors include (1) indicators of banks’ operational activities, (2) measures of money laundering risk and (3) proxies of economic activity, all of which at local level. At an operational level, the model provides a tool that supervisory authorities can use to detect potentially under-reporting intermediaries, thus better targeting off-site controls and on-site inspections. More in general, the results provide some insights on banks’ reporting behavior at large. The main threat to the effectiveness of anti-money laundering systems is considered the asymmetry in the incentives: since sanctions apply only to omitted reports, banks have an incentive to over-report, thus potentially flooding the authorities with noise (‘crying wolf’ syndrome). Results show that the STR-filing strategies adopted by the banks being scrutinized may not necessarily give rise to this scenario.

中文翻译：

---

从不同的角度看“哭狼”：尝试检测可疑交易的银行漏报和漏报

这项研究旨在评估银行在报告可疑交易方面的合规性。它通过估算意大利单个银行从其经营所在省的每个省提交的可疑交易报告（STR）的计量经济学模型。回归分析包括（1）银行经营活动指标，（2）洗钱措施风险和（3）经济活动的代理，所有这些都在地方一级进行。在运营级别，该模型提供了一个工具，监管机构可以使用该工具来检测潜在的报告不足的中间人，从而更好地针对非现场控制和现场检查。总的来说，结果为银行的整体报告行为提供了一些见解。反洗钱制度有效性的主要威胁被认为是激励措施的不对称：由于制裁仅适用于遗漏的报告，因此银行有动机进行过度举报，从而有可能使当局充斥噪音（“哭狼”综合症）。结果表明，接受审查的银行采用的STR备案策略不一定会导致这种情况。