The article analyzes public and private law enforcement when the government is motivated partially or entirely by rent-seeking. The model compares and contrasts the optimal law enforcement policies chosen by a benevolent, social welfare-maximizing government and a self-interested, rent-seeking...

This article presents a model of non-monetary sanctions with corruption. It is a well-known result in the law enforcement literature that in the absence of corruption, non-monetary sanctions, such as imprisonment, should be imposed infrequently. We show that, in the presence of corruption, it is...

This article analyzes private law enforcement in an environment with corruption. The effect of corruption is studied both under the assumption of monopolistic enforcement by a single private enforcement agency and under the assumption of competitive enforcement by many private enforcers. In...

The hallmark of Judge Posner's class action decisions is rigorous review to ensure that aggregate litigation serves the best interests of class members and does not unduly pressure defendants to settle. Although he championed class actions, especially as a way to provide efficient justice in...

Schweizer (2017) provides a powerful and general way of using compensation payments to induce efficient actions. Its application to takings under fiscal illusion, however, is problematic. A better model would assume that the government decides to take property by considering effects on the...

Recent empirical work shows that countries whose legal systems are based on English common law differ systematically from those whose legal systems are based on French civil law. Glaeser and Shleifer (2002) trace this divergence to England's adoption of the jury system and France's adoption of...