For a rational choice theorist, the absence of crime is more difficult to explain than its presence. Arguably, the expected value of criminal sanctions, i.e. the product of severity times certainty, is often below the expected benefit. We rely on a standard theory from behavioral economics,...

Gender inequality and discrimination still persist, even though the gender gap in the labor market has been gradually decreasing. This study examines the effect of the #MeToo movement on judges' gender gap in their vital labor market outcome–judicial decisions on randomly assigned legal cases...

There exists a large literature on the optimal deterrence of crime. Within the literature, however, there exists a controversy over what the appropriate criterion is to determine optimality. The most popular method is that of maximization of a utilitarian welfare function. The controversy stems...

Legal realists expect prosecutors to be selfish. If they get the defendant convicted, this helps them advance their careers. If the odds of winning on the main charge are low, prosecutors have a second option. They can exploit the ambiguity of legal doctrine and charge the defendant for vaguely...

The empirical evidence for a positive relationship between income inequality and crime is mixed at best. This paper questions the use of standard income inequality measures (e.g., Gini coefficient) in this literature and makes the case that polarization of the income distribution is a crucial...

Darwin’s (1871) observation that evolution has produced in us certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct that lack any obvious basis in individual utility is a useful springboard from which to clarify the role of emotion in moral judgment. The problem is whether a certain class of...

Scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program that has recently gained attention is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models...

Could a computer be programmed to make moral judgments about cases of intentional harm and unreasonable risk that match those judgments people already make intuitively? If the human moral sense is an unconscious computational mechanism of some sort, as many cognitive scientists have suggested,...

In his path-breaking work on the foundations of visual perception, the MIT neuroscientist David Marr distinguished three levels at which any information-processing task can be understood and emphasized the first of these: Although algorithms and mechanisms are empirically more accessible, it is...

Monopsony is the buyer-side counterpart to monopoly, a situation in which a single purchaser or payer dominates a market for goods or services. When a government entity is the dominant or sole payer for a service, a governmental monopsony results; one example is the provision of indigent defense...