It is shown that, in a dynamic competition, an exogenous horizontal merger is profitable even if a small share of active firms merge. However, each firm has incentive to remain outside the merger because it would benefit more (Insiders’dilemma). We show that in an infinite repeated game in...

In this paper the employment of Scottish and English self- reporting drug users is considered using data drawn from the Scottish and British Crime Surveys. Univariate and bivariate estimates of the probability of being employed reveal a robustly negative and statistically significant association...

This paper presents estimates of a dynamic individual-level model of cannabis consumption, using data from a 1998 survey of young people in Britain. The econometric model is a split-population generalisation of the non-stationary Poisson process, allowing for a separate dynamic process for...

This paper presents an econometric model that combines macroeconomic time series data with historical series relating to political instability in Israel during the Intifada period, in order to provide a conservative estimate of the extent to which variations in economic performance over time...

In a seminal paper, Becker (1968) showed that the most efficient way to deter crime is to impose the severest possible penalty (to maintain adequate deterrence) with the lowest possible probability (to economize on costs of enforcement). We shall call this the Becker proposition (BP). The BP is...

All models in Law and Economics use punishment functions (PF) that incorporates a trade-off between probability of detection, p, and punishment, F. Suppose society wishes to minimize the total costs of enforcement and damages from crime, T (p; F). For a given p, an optimal punishment function...

Weak institutions are shown to create scope for public banks to play a growth-promoting role, even if such banks are less efficient than private banks.

Tax evasion analysis is typically based on an expected utility theory (EUT) framework. However, this leads to several qualitative and quantitative puzzles. Given actual probabilities of audit and penalty rates the return on evasion ranges from 91-98 percent. So why don’t most of us evade?...

Using a suitably modified locational model of banking, we examine the influence of institutions, such as deposit contract enforcement, in explaining the share of government owned banks in the banking system. We present cross-country evidence suggesting that institutional factors are relatively...

The predictions of expected utility theory (EUT) applied to tax evasion are flawed on two counts: (i) They are quantitatively in error by huge orders of magnitude. (ii) Higher taxation is predicted to lower evasion, which is at variance with the evidence. An emerging literature in behavioral...