Researchers studying human and non-human primates have begun exploring deviations from the canonical model of expected utility. Additionally, researchers have examined the role of inequality in decision-making across the taxa. However, these two research programs are rarely combined. In this...

Moral behavior and concern for others are sometimes argued to set humans apart from other species. However, there is some evidence that humans are not the only animal species to possess these characteristics. Work from behavioral biology and neuroscience has indicated that some of these traits...

This paper measures the relative efficiency of 50 municipal police departments in New York State using an output-oriented data envelopment analysis programming model and finds that 30 departments are efficient, while 20 could improve their efficiency. Adoption of best practice methods in the 20...

Increasing penalty structures for repeat offenses are ubiquitous in penal codes, despite little empirical or theoretical support. Multi-period models of criminal enforcement based on the standard economic approach of Becker (1968) generally find that the optimal penalty structure is either flat...

Increasing penalty structures for repeat offenses are ubiquitous in penal codes, despite little empirical or theoretical support. Multi-period models of criminal enforcement based on the standard economic approach of Becker (1968) generally find that the optimal penalty structure is either flat...

We propose a model of municipal waste management that combines waste quality monitoring with leachate control. These inputs modulate two types of uncertainty. First, waste quality is uncertain, as it arrives from several nonpoint sources and may contain hazardous waste. Second, while U.S....

This paper utilizes a spatial competition model to analyze criminal activity. Criminals are heterogeneous in their cost of providing illegal goods and compete by choosing a location and a price for the distribution of the illegal goods to clients. The locational choice of criminals and law...

The Coase theorem tells us that monetary damages and specific performance remedies for breach of contract have identical effects when transaction costs are zero. This has become a standard part of the literature on the economics of contract law. This note argues that the traditional view is...

Simultaneity complicates the estimation of the causal effect of police on crime. We overcome this obstacle by focusing on a mass layoff of Oregon State Police in February of 2003. Due solely to budget cuts, 35 percent of the roadway troopers were laid off, which dramatically reduced citations....