This entry for the forthcoming The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Second Edition) surveys the economic analysis of public enforcement of law — the use of public agents (inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules. We first discuss...

This entry for the forthcoming The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Second Edition) surveys the economic analysis of five primary fields of law: property law; liability for accidents; contract law; litigation; and public enforcement and criminal law. It also briefly considers some...

We examine how socio-economic and police enforcement variables affect property and violent crimes at different points of the crime distribution in England and Wales over the period 1992-2007. By using data from 43 police force areas, we examine how the effect of real earnings, unemployment,...

We assess the effect of the homicide rate, individual´s perception of security in their neighborhood of residence, and of the effect of their having been victimized, on life satisfaction. We find a negative effect of the homicide rate on life satisfaction for the subsample of individuals living...

In this paper we analyze the strategic decisions of the government, the incumbent and the pirate in a market where the good is piratable. We show that deterred or accommodated piracy can occur in equilibrium, but pure monopoly cannot occur for any anti-piracy policy. We also show that the...

We test whether immigrants are more prone to support terror than natives because of lower opportunity costs, using the international World Values Survey data. We show that, in general, economically, politically and socially non-integrated persons are more likely to accept using violence for...

We assess the effect of the homicide rate, individual´s perception of security in their neighborhood of residence, and of the effect of their having been victimized, on life satisfaction. We find a negative effect of the homicide rate on life satisfaction for the subsample of individuals living...

A growing body of work suggests that education offers a wide-range of benefits that extend beyond increases in labor market productivity. Improvements in education can lower crime, improve health, and increase voting and democratic participation. This chapter reviews recent developments on these...

A robust prediction from the tax evasion literature is that optimal auditing induces a regressive bias in e¤ective tax rates compared to statutory rates. If correct, this will have important distributional consequences. Nevertheless, the regressive bias hypothesis has never been tested...