the sanctions against criminal activity, or of the taxation of legal incomes, may weaken the social norm against crime … increase in the crime rate. We show that law enforcement policies may have dramatic and permanent efects on the crime rate, and …

This paper argues that the Economics of Crime concentrates too much on punishment as a policy to fight crime, which is … unwise for several reasons. There are important instances in which punishment simply cannot reduce crime. Several feasible … alternatives to punishment exist, such as offering positive incentives or handing out awards for law abiding behavior. These …

several reasons. On the one hand, there are important instances in which punishment is unable to reduce crime or may even …The economics of crime concentrates on policies in the form of punishments. To adopt such a policy is unwise for …

purporting to show robust and precise estimates of a substantial deterrent effect of capital punishment. We assess the various …

increases substantially after introducing an ex post sanctioning possibility. Namely, subjects can assign punishment points to …

second contributor. The consequences of sanctioning depend on the treatment: whereas punishment can reduce inequality in one … treatment, it only creates another inequality in the other. To capture the effect of delay on punishment both treatments are run … once with immediate and once with delayed punishment. Moreover, to investigate the effect of pure voice, all four …

play a treatment with punishment, they cooperate less and face higher punishment costs than when first playing a treatment … without punishment. The changes are that drastic that punishment does not pay in the first case, while it does in the later …. Second, for participants first playing without punishment the contributions in the very first period of play determine the …

anger, ‘social’ emotions like shame and guilt need to be present for punishment to be an effective deterrent of …

Because costly punishment is not credible, subgame perfection suggests that punishment will not deter free riding … strategies seen in the lab and use the simulation to develop hypotheses about why group size should matter when punishment is … rates no lower than small groups because punishment does not fall appreciably in large groups. However, hindrances to …