This chapter presents a public choice theory of criminal procedure. The core idea is that criminal procedure is best understood as a set of rules designed to thwart attempts to use the state's law enforcement power in a predatory fashion or in order to transfer wealth generally. For the most...

China's recent crackdown on government corruption and commercial bribery by multinational companies is widely known. As part of this campaign against bribery, the Chinese government has promulgated a number of new laws against corruption and bribery as well as lengthy and binding interpretations...

We examine 70,581 felony court cases filed in Chicago, IL, during the period 1990–2007. We exploit case randomization to assess the impact of judge assignment and sentencing decisions on the arrival of new charges. Our estimates of the impact of incarceration on recidivism show that, in...

The recent European Union (EU) proposal to harmonize criminal penalties for sanctions violations across its member states purports to be an ambitious initiative to create a consistent approach to sanctions enforcement across the Union. However, the proposal falls short of the reform needed to...

The purpose of this paper is to outline the circumstances in which telecommunications data can be lawfully accessed for national security and law enforcement purposes, and to consider whether this access regime sacrifices individual privacy to an unacceptable extent. Since privacy is the primary...

I present the following proposal: information revealed during non-cartel investigations by competition law enforcement authorities, such as evaluation of M&As or investigation of monopolization (dominance) conduct, should be directly used to investigate and prosecute cartels. Currently, in...

The EC antitrust prohibitions are regularly invoked in private litigation as a shield. Private parties also play an important role in public antitrust enforcement through complaints to the competition authorities. However, in marked contrast with the situation in the US, private actions for...

This paper deals with the application of the principle of 'ne bis in idem' in EC antitrust enforcement. The principle of 'ne bis in idem', laid down in Article 4 of Protocol 7 to the European Convention on Human Rights and in Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,...

The literature contains ambiguous findings as to whether statistical discrimination, e.g. in the form of racial profiling, causes a reduction in deterrence. These analyses, however, assume that enforcers' incentives are exogenously fixed. This article demonstrates that when the costs and...

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...