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...

Agents may commit a crime twice. The act is inefficient so that the agents are to be deterred. Even if an agent is law abiding, she may still commit the act accidentally. The agents are wealth constrained. The government seeks to minimize the probability of apprehension. If the benefit from the...

First we show that for wealth-constrained agents who may commit an act twice the optimal sanctions are the offender's entire wealth for the first and zero for the second crime. Then we ask the question whether this decreasing sanction scheme is subgame perfect (time consistent), i.e., does a...

Agents may commit a crime twice. The act is inefficient so that the agents are to be deterred. The agents are wealth constrained so that increasing the fine for the first offense means a reduction in the sanction for the second offense and vice versa. The agents may follow history dependent...

After a brief description of the role and functions of digital information systems, we examine, within the conception of these systems, the decisive breaks resulting from technological advances. Then, we clarify the problem of “capitalizing on company’s knowledge” in order to introduce a...