This paper starts by reviewing empirical research that threatens law and economics' initial success. This research has demonstrated that the functioning of the law cannot be well understood based on the assumption of the rational actor and that policies which are based on this assumption are...

As co-editor, I dedicate this special issue to Wibo van Rossum, who sadly passed away during the making of it. Wibo initiated this special issue and, despite his grave illness, was determined to help accomplish it. The idea of editing this special issue originated from the annual conference of...

In his inaugural lecture, Peter Mascini takes issue with the goal of scientific purity in the behavioral study of the law, conceived as the deliberate choice to postulate a limited number of universally applicable behavioral principles. The guiding principle of behavioral sociology is that law...

By using a longitudinal bi-annual dataset (2012–2018) from the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (Cepej) for 22 EU countries, this study tests four hypotheses that have been derived from rational choice theory at individual and aggregated level. The positive associations...

Disability policy in European countries is displaying a shift towards social investment: increasing human capital and access to the labour market. The reasoning that underlies this transition is that disabled persons would benefit from mainstream employment, but are impeded in traditional policy...

Drawing on 15 in-depth interviews with immigrants who were legalised through a one-off collective amnesty issued by the Dutch government in 2007, this article proposes a tentative typology of three types of immigrants in terms of their economic integration (self-sufficient, dependent, and...

This chapter first distinguishes four influential policy ideas about regulatory inspection — criminalizing corporate non-compliance, reintegrative shaming, the enforcement pyramid, and risk-based regulation — in terms of assumed compliance motives. Subsequently, the state-centeredness of...

Man-made disasters usually lead to the tightening of safety regulations because rule breaking is seen as a major cause of them. This reaction is based on the assumptions that the safety rules are good and that the rule-breakers are wrong. The reasons the personnel of a coke factory gave for...