670 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
3730 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Research Interests: corporate criminal law, corporate ethics, criminology, law and psychology
Links: Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research
PhD, Rutgers University; JD, Northeastern University School of Law; BA, The Johns Hopkins University
David W. Hauck Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Undergraduate Division, 1991, 1997 (first recipient non-tenured faculty member, 1991; first recipient of award for non-tenured and tenured faculty, 1997); Marc & Sheri Rapaport Undergraduate Core Teaching Award, 2002, 2012; Excellence in Teaching Award (1990-1993, 1996-2001; 2004-2006; 2008-2010; 2013-2015); Graduate Division Excellence in Teaching Award, 2001, 2002; Miller-Sherrerd MBA Core Teaching Award, 2000-2003
National White-Collar Crime Research Consortium: Outstanding Book Award, 2010
Wharton: 1989-present (named Julian Aresty Endowed Professor, 2007); Director, Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research, 2000-2010 and 2013-present; Anheuser-Busch Term Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, 1989-95; Associate Director, Sellin Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law, 1989-90). School of Arts and Sciences: Chair, Department of Criminology, 2008-2009; Graduate Chair, Department of Criminology, 2009-2010; Faculty Affiliate, Penn Program on Regulation, 2014 to present; Visiting appointment: New York University School of Law, 2004-5; Faculty, Joint Vienna Institute, Vienna, Austria, 2013.
Consultant, Private Sector Development and Competitiveness Project, World Bank, 2012-2014; Member, Academic Council, Hills Program Governance, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., 2002-present; Regional (North America) Secretary General, International Society of Social Defense and Humane Criminal Policy, Economic and Social Council, United Nations, 2004-present; Member, Working Group on Business-Led Collective Action Against Corruption, World Bank Institute, 2007-2013; Member, Working Group, PRME Anti-Corruption Working Group, UN Global Compact, 2010-present; Member, United Nations Global Compact Academic Advisory Team, 2006-2007; Advisory Board Member, Business Contributions to the Millennium Development Goals, United Nations Development Programme, 2006-2007; Member, International Advisory Board, Program on Global Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Competitiveness, World Bank Institute, 2005-2008; Board Member, Center for Political Accountability (Washington, DC), 2009-present; Faculty Advisory Committee, Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, 2014- present; Senior Advisor, International Infrastructure Finance Fund, 2013-present; Member, Expert Advisory Committee, World Economic Forum, Anti-Corruption Collective Action Project in the Infrastructure and Urban Development Industries, 2014-present.
William S. Laufer and Mihailis E. Diamantis, The Prosecution and Punishment of Corporate Criminality, 15 Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences ___ (2018).
Matthew Caulfield and William S. Laufer (Under Revision), The Use and Abuse of Corporate Moral Agency: Moral Agency at the Convenience of Law and Ethics.
Matthew Caulfield and William S. Laufer (2018), The Promise of Corporate Character Theory, Iowa Law Review Online, 103 (101).
Freda Adler, Gerhard O. W. Mueller, William S. Laufer, Criminology, Ninth Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill) (2017)
William S. Laufer (Forthcoming), The Missing Account of Progressive Corporate Criminal Law, 14 New York University Journal of Law and Business___ (2017).
William S. Laufer (Forthcoming), A Very Special Regulatory Milestone, 20 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law ___(2017).
William S. Laufer, Compliance and Evidence: Some Optimism from a Perennial Pessimist, In K. Tiedemann, U. Sieber, H. Satzger, C. Burchard, & D. Brodowski (Eds.), Die Verfassung moderner Strafrechtspflege: Erinnerung an Joachim Vogel (Baden-Baden: Nomos) (2016)
William S. Laufer, Corporate Inauthenticity and the Finding of Fault, In F. Centronze & M. Mantovani (Eds.) La Responsabilita Penale Delgli Enti, (Milano: Il Mulino, 2016) (2016)
William S. Laufer, The Compliance Game, In Saad-Diniz, D. Brodowski, & A. Luiza (eds.), Regulação do abuso no âmbito corporativo: o papel do direito penal na crise financeira (São Paulo: LiberArs, 2015) (2015)
William S. Laufer and Danielle M. Dorn Criminology and Forensic Psychiatry, in Robert Sadoff (Ed.), Forensic Psychiatry: History, Current Development, Future Directions (Oxford) (2015).
This introductory course examines the multi-disciplinary science of law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcing. It reviews theories and data predicting where, when, by whom and against whom crimes happen. It also addresses the prevention of different offense types by different kinds of offenders against different kinds of people. Police, courts, prisons, and other institutions are critically examined as both preventing and causing crime. This course meets the general distribution requirement.
Statistical techniques and quantitative reasoning are essential tools for properly examing questions in the social sciences. This course introduces students to the concepts of probability, estimation, confidence intervals, and how to use the statistical concepts and methods to answer social science questions. The course will require the use of R, a free, open source statistical analysis program. This course has been approved for the quantitative data analysis requirement (QDA).
This course explores constitutional criminal procedure or the law of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Topics included the laws and rules associated with search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, the exclusionary rule, and deprivation of counsel. Social science evidence that supports or raises questions about legal doctrine will be examined. No prerequisites are required.
Senior Research Thesis is for senior Criminology majors only. Students are assigned advisors with assistance from the Undergraduate Chair.
Primarily for advanced students who work with individual faculty upon permission. Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses.
This course presents law as an evolving social institution, with special emphasis on the legal regulation of business in the context of social values. It considers basic concepts of law and legal process, in the U.S. and other legal systems, and introduces the fundamentals of rigorous legal analysis. An in-depth examination of contract law is included.
This course is a multidisciplinary, interactive study of business ethics within a global economy. A central aim of the course is to enable students to develop a framework to address ethical challenges as they arise within and across different countries. Alternative theories about acting ethically in global environments are presented, and critical current issues are introduced and analyzed. Examples include bribery, global sourcing, environmental sustainability, social reports, intellectual property, e-commerce, and dealing with conflicting standards and values across cultures. As part of this study, the course considers non-Western ethical traditions and practices as they relate to business.
A study of the nature, functions, and limits of law as an agency of societal policy. Each semester an area of substantive law is studied for the purpose of examining the relationship between legal norms developed and developing in the area and societal problems and needs.
This course uses the global business context to introduce students to important legal, ethical and cultural challenges they will face as business leaders. Cases and materials will address how business leaders, constrained by law and motivated to act responsibly in a global context, should analyze relevant variables to make wise decisions. Topics will include an introduction to the basic theoretical frameworks used in the analysis of ethical issues, such as right-based, consequentialist-based, and virtue-based reasoning, and conflicting interpretations of corporate responsibility. The course will include materials that introduce students to basic legal (common law vs. civil law) and normative (human rights) regimes at work in the global economy as well as sensitize them to the role of local cultural traditions in global business activity. Topics may also include such issues as comparative forms of corporate governance, bribery and corruption in global markets, human rights issues, diverse legal compliance systems, corporate responses to global poverty, global environmental responsibilities, and challenges arising when companies face conflicting ethical demands between home and local, host country mores. The pedagogy emphasizes globalized cases, exercises, and theoretical materials from the fields of legal studies, business ethics and social responsibility. Format: class participation, midterm and final exams. Materials: coursepack.
This course is a multidisciplinary, interactive study of business ethics within a global economy. A central aim of the course is to enable students to develop a framework to address ethical challenges as they arise within and across different countries. Alternative theories about acting ethically in global environments are presented, and critical current issues are introduced and analyzed. Examples include bribery, global sourcing, environmental sustainability, social reports, intellectual property, e-commerce, and dealing with conflicting standards and values across cultures. As part of this study, the course considers non-Western ethical traditions and practices as they relate to business.
This course will introduce students to basic jurisprudential discussions and debates that relate to understanding business in society. Topics will include a general overview of the nature of law and its relationship to ethics; history of legal thought, business in society; theories of contract, torts, and property; criminal law as it applies to business situations; and theories of the business enterprise and its regulation. Selected topics will also be chosen in accordance with the interest of participants in the seminar.
This introductory course examines the multi-disciplinary science of law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcing. It reviews theories explaining where, when, by whom and against whom crimes happen. Police, courts, prisons, and other institutions are also critically examined. This course meets the general distribution requirement.
Directed readings and research in areas of sociology. Permission of instructor needed.
Primarily for advanced students who work with individual instructors upon permission. Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses.
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1990)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1991)
David W. Hauck Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Undergraduate Division (1991) (first recipient non-tenured faculty member)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1992)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1993)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1996)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1997)
David W. Hauck Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Undergraduate Division (1997) (first recipient of award for non-tenured and tenured faculty)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1998)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (1999)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2000)
Miller-Sherrerd MBA Core Teaching Award (2000)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2001)
Graduate Division Excellence in Teaching Award (2001)
Miller-Sherrerd MBA Core Teaching Award (2002)
Marc & Sheri Rapaport Undergraduate Core Teaching Award (2002)
Graduate Division Excellence in Teaching Award (2002)
Miller-Sherrerd MBA Core Teaching Award (2003)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2004)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2005)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2006)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2008)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2009)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2010)
Marc & Sheri Rapaport Undergraduate Core Teaching Award (2012)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2013)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2014)
Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award (2015)
National White-Collar Crime Research Consortium: Outstanding Book Award, 2010
"Cap and trade" systems, in which corporations that exceed their allotment of carbon dioxide emissions are allowed to purchase certificates from those with low emissions, were designed to combat global climate change by giving polluters a financial incentive to reduce, or offset, their impact on the environment. But carbon markets in Europe and elsewhere are increasingly falling victim to fraud in the form of phishing, bribery and other schemes. Wharton experts and others say combating these crimes is a complicated problem, which thus far has no clear solution.
Knowledge @ Wharton - 2010/06/9