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Optimal Sanctions When Individuals are Imperfectly Informed About the Probability of Apprehension
Bebchuk, Lucian Arye - 1992
This paper considers optimal enforcement when individuals may be imperfectly informed about the probability of apprehension. When individuals are perfectly informed, optimal sanctions are maximal because, as Gary Becker (1968) suggested, society can economize on enforcement resources by reducing...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012474900
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The Determinants of Punishment : Deterrence, Incapacitation and Vengeance
Glaeser, Edward L. - 2000
Does the economic model of optimal punishment explain the variation in the sentencing of murderers? As the model … respond to victim characteristics in a way that is hard to reconcile with optimal punishment. In particular, victim … optimal punishment model predicts that victim characteristics should be ignored. Among vehicular homicides, drivers who kill …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471091
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The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law
Polinsky, A. Mitchell - 1999
This article surveys the theory of the public enforcement of law -- the use of public agents (inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules. We first present the basic elements of the theory, focusing on the probability of imposition of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471807
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Do Collateral Sanctions Work? Evidence from the IRS' Passport Certification and Revocation Process
Organ, Paul R.; Ruda, Alex; Slemrod, Joel; Turk, Alex - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2021
Penalties for tax evasion are typically financial, but many jurisdictions also utilize collateral sanctions that deny access to some government-provided service. To learn about the effectiveness of such penalties, we examine a U.S. policy restricting passport access for taxpayers with...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012599319
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Crime and Punishment Again : The Economic Approach with a Psychological Twist
Dickens, William T. - 1986
dissonance, increasing the severity of punishment could increase the crime rate. This paper demonstrates that that conjecture was … punishment is not severe. The rationalization may lead them to underestimate the expected utility of committing crimes when … opportunities present themselves. If punishment is severe, then rationalization may not be necessary and people may be more likely …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477191
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The Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment
Polinsky, A. Mitchell - 1982
This paper examines the use of fines and imprisonment to deter individuals from engaging in harmful activities. These sanctions are analyzed separately as well as together, first for identical risk-neutral individuals and then for two groups of risk-neutral individuals who differ by wealth. When...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012478175
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Private versus Public Enforcement of Fines
Polinsky, A. Mitchell - 1979
The present paper analyzes the competitive, monopolistic, and public enforcement of fines allowing for the costs of enforcement to differ by the choice of the enforcer. There are a number of reasons to expect such differences. First, the benefits from coordinating enforcement -- for example,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012478810
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The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment : A Question of Life and Death
Ehrlich, Isaac - 1973
punishment, a reexamination of which, in both theory and practice, is the object of the paper …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012479107
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Deterrence and the Adjustment of Sentences During Imprisonment
Polinsky, A. Mitchell - 2019
The prison time actually served by a convicted criminal depends to a significant degree on decisions made by the state during the course of imprisonment--on whether to grant parole or other forms of sentence reduction. In this article we study a model of the adjustment of sentences assuming that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012480030
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One for the Road : Public Transportation, Alcohol Consumption, and Intoxicated Driving
Jackson, C. Kirabo - 2010
We exploit arguably exogenous train schedule changes in Washington DC to investigate the relationship between public transportation provision, the risky decision to consume alcohol, and the criminal decision to engage in alcohol-impaired driving. Using a triple differences strategy, we provide...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462778