The economist J.K. Galbraith asserted that fraud rose in a bull market and shrank in a slump. As he put it, the "bezzle" rises in a boom because of lax controls and fades in a bust.

The discovery of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme suggests Galbraith may be right about large-scale embezzlement, but my experience is the opposite when it comes to petty larceny. In other words, I suspect industry is enduring an epidemic of crime right now, as integrity becomes a casualty of the recession.

At one of our restaurant companies, we have suffered a disturbing rise in insurance claims. This is not because we are careless: we take health and safety seriously. Several of these actions relate to apparent falls by suppliers' workers, for example. The curious thing is that in more than one case the victim appears to have waited more than 15 months before notifying us of the injury.