This paper explores the effects of public enforcement, in general, and punishment, in particular, on crime levels if offenders can engage in avoidance activities. Avoidance reduces the probability or magnitude of punishment. In general, offenders can reduce their expected punishment either by...

This paper explores the effects of alternative tax rules regarding monetary sanctions and litigation costs on the levels of criminal activity and litigation expenditure. The key insight is that taxation may affect crime not only by changing the relative expected returns from legal and criminal...

A large percentage of the deaths from COVID-19 occur among residents of long-term care facilities. There are two possible reasons for this phenomenon. First, the structural features of such settings may lead to death. Alternatively, it is possible that individuals in these facilities are in...

Economic models of income-producing crimes are usually formulated as a labor supply decision (or a portfolio problem) under uncertainty. As such they are easily susceptible to income taxation. This paper incorporates the theory of the taxation of risk taking into such a model to derive results...

When people face risk of death, they over invest in risk reduction: first, they discount their risk-reduction costs by the probability of death; second, they consider the consumption of their wealth as a benefit from risk reduction. From a social perspective, people’s wealth remains after...

This paper explores the effects of public enforcement, in general, and punishment, in particular, on crime levels if offenders can engage in avoidance activities. Avoidance reduces the probability or magnitude of punishment. In general, offenders can reduce their expected punishment either by...

This paper suggests and justifies a revised formulation of the unilateral accident model based on relaxing two assumptions of the standard model: the precaution function and the harm function. The revised model is, therefore, more general and corresponds better to various situations. A resulting...

This paper studies alternative care situations in which the injurer is liable for harm but the victim is only partially compensated for her losses, for example, because the accident will result in serious bodily injury or death. In these situations, liability gives rise to multiple equilibria,...

This article argues that the law should sometimes encourage offenders to incur costs to avoid punishment. Avoidance, such as concealment of evidence, perjury, or obstruction of justice, is generally deemed socially undesirable because it wastes resources and reduces deterrence. However, since...