It is often claimed that rewards for whistleblowers lead to fraudulent reports, but for several US programs this has not been a major problem. We model the interaction between rewards for whistleblowers, sanctions against fraudulent reporting, judicial errors, and standards of proof in the court case on a whistleblower’s allegations and the possible follow-up for fraudulent allegations. Balancing whistleblower rewards, sanctions against fraudulent reports, and courts’ standards of proof is essential for these policies to succeed. When the risk of retaliation is severe, larger rewards are needed and so are tougher sanctions against fraudulent reports. The precision of the legal system must be sufficiently high, hence these programs are not viable in weak institution environments, where protection is imperfect and court precision low, or where sanctions against false reporting are mild.

通常认为，对举报人的奖励会导致欺诈性举报，但是对于美国的一些计划而言，这并不是一个主要问题。我们对举报人的奖励，对欺诈性举报的制裁，司法错误以及举报人指控与法院可能对欺诈指控采取后续行动的举证标准之间的相互作用进行建模。平衡举报人的奖励，对欺诈性报告的制裁以及法院的证明标准对于这些政策的成功至关重要。当报复风险严重时，就需要更大的报酬，对欺诈性举报的制裁也将更加严厉。法律制度的精确度必须足够高，因此这些程序在脆弱的机构环境（保护不完善且法院精确度低）中不可行，