, 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 sanctions, the magnitude and form of sanctions, and the rule of liability. We then …

Regulation and the negligence rule are both designed to obtain compliance with desired standards of behavior, but they … differ in a primary respect: compliance with regulation is ordinarily assessed independently of the occurrence of harm … use of the negligence rule is triggered by harm, the rule enjoys an intrinsic enforcement cost advantage over regulation …

Liability and safety regulation are examined as means of controlling risks in a theoretical model of the occurrence of … accidents. According to the model, regulation does not result in appropriate reduction of risk -- due to the regulator's lack of … knowledge about risk -- nor does liability result in that outcome -- because the incentives it creates are diluted by the chance …