Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we show that first impressions are indeed causal for cooperativeness in three different institutional...

Under a great variety of legally relevant circumstances, people have to decide whether or not to cooperate, when they face an incentive to defect. The law sometimes provides people with sanctioning mechanisms to enforce pro-social behavior. Experimental evidence on voluntary public good...

This paper offers a new argument for why a more aggressive enforcement of minor offenses ("zero-tolerance") may yield a double dividend in that it reduces both minor offenses and more severe crime. We develop a model of criminal subcultures in which people gain social status among their peers...

This paper argues that contracts induced by means of bribery should be valid. Nullity and voidability decrease the incentive for voluntary disclosure, assist corrupt actors with enforcing their bribe agreements and provide leeway for abuse. Thus, they run counter to effective anti-corruption. It...

In major legal orders such as UK, the U.S., Germany, and France, bribers and recipients face equally severe criminal sanctions. In contrast, countries like China, Russia, and Japan treat the briber more mildly. Given these differences between symmetric and asymmetric punishment regimes for...

Median voter theorem has been used in many economic environments including law enforcement. Assumptions of the median voter theorem, however, are generally violated in lawenforcement models. Moreover, it is impossible to have agents with "opposite equilibrium preferences" over enforcement levels...

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....

This paper develops a model in which individuals gain social status among their peers for being 'tough' by committing violent acts. We show that a high penalty for moderately violent acts (zero-tolerance) may yield a double dividend in that it reduces both moderate and extreme violence. The...

This paper argues that contracts induced by means of bribery should be valid. Nullity and voidability decrease the incentive for voluntary disclosure, assist corrupt actors with enforcing their bribe agreements and provide leeway for abuse. Thus, they run counter to effective anti-corruption. It...

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...