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...

This article derives the optimal award to a winning plaintiff and the optimal penalty on a losing plaintiff when the probability of prevailing varies among plaintiffs. Optimality is defined in terms of achieving a specified degree of deterrence of potential injurers with the lowest litigation...

This paper analyzes optimal fines in a model in which individuals can commit up to two offenses. The fine for the second offense is allowed to differ from the fine for the first offense. There are four natural cases in the model, defined by assumptions about the gains to individuals from...

An important result in the economic theory of enforcement is that, under certain circumstances, it is optimal for a fine to be as high as possible - to equal the entire wealth of individuals. Such a fine allows the probability of detection to be as low as possible, thereby saving enforcement...

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...

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,...

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...

In this article I examine the social desirability of rewarding prisoners for good behavior, either by reducing their sentences (granting “time off”), converting part of their sentences to a period of parole, or providing them with privileges in prison. Rewarding good behavior reduces the...

This article studies the optimal use of fines and imprisonment when an offender's level of wealth is private information that cannot be observed by the enforcement authority. In a model in which there are two levels of wealth, I derive the optimal mix of sanctions, including the imprisonment...