Preventive law enforcement increases social welfare by hindering the infliction of criminal harm, but produces inconvenience costs to the general public, because it requires interfering with the acts of innocents as well as attempters. This article shows that the optimal amount of investment in...

The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has been a highly rated competition law enforcer. Yet its antitrust performance activities fall far short of this image. Here a critical assessment is made of the OFT's antitrust enforcement activities, and the claim that there is quantitative survey evidence...

The commitment of governments, international organizations and enterprises to combatting corruption appears to have intensified in recent years. The efforts of these institutions appear centered on a “Two Thrust Approach,” consisting of the simultaneous application of the development and...

Opponents of — and sometimes advocates for — sanctuary policies typically describe them as obstructions to the operation of federal immigration law. This premise is flawed. On the better view, the sanctuary movement comports with, rather than fights against, dominant new themes in federal...

This comment examines trends in anti-cartel enforcement by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (the Division) and coordinated actions by other U.S. Government agencies, with particular attention paid to developments in 2017 and 2018. By long-standing DOJ policy, criminal...

Governments around the world spend an estimated $9.5 trillion of public money purchasing goods and services each year (public procurement). Not only does this represent a significant proportion of government expenditure (29.1 percent on average in OECD countries) and of total gross domestic...

We develop a theoretical model to identify and compare partial and equilibrium effects of uncertainty and the magnitude of fines on punishment and deterrence. Partial effects are effects on potential violators' and punishers' decisions when the other side's behavior is exogenously given....

Given the threats of our current 'risk society', there is an ever-increasing demand for safety regulation to counter the harmful effects of an equally growing number of dangerous activities. Claims for more safety and security abound, ranging from concerns about people killed in traffic...

The burden of proof is a central feature of adjudication, and analogues exist in many other settings. It constitutes an important but largely unappreciated policy instrument that interacts with the level of enforcement effort and magnitude of sanctions in controlling harmful activity. Models are...

Recidivism has in the last few years attracted much attention and controversy in the context of EU antitrust enforcement. The treatment of recidivism by the European Commission and the EU Courts has often been criticized, and the observed incidence of recidivism has led to some questioning of...