Whistleblowers are not only helping to disclose immoral or criminal acts but also to deter offenders. Niels Johannesen, an economics professor from the University of Copenhagen and Tim Stolper, a former research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance found clear evidence for this deterrence effect, using the example of data leaks surrounding banking services in tax havens. The economists discovered that following the appearance of the first data leak, which originated from LGT Bank in Liechtenstein, also Swiss banks engaged in cross-border tax evasion suffered significant drops in their share prices. At the same time, bank deposits in tax havens fell by more than ten percent compared to deposits in non-haven countries.
Whistleblowers steal confidential information in order to lay bare criminal actions such as tax evasion. For this, they are sometimes considered to be "heroes of our time", to paraphrase Alfred de Zayas, former UN Special Rapporteur for the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. This positive view of informants assumes that whistleblowing not only acts as the catalyst for prosecuting individual criminals but also promotes honest behavior by lifting the lid on undesirable conduct. The empirical results by Niels Johannesen, an economics professor from the University of Copenhagen and Tim Stolper, a former research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, support this hypothesis.
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