The economic literature on optimal law enforcement is very recent. Becker's seminal paper on crime and law enforcement dates from 1968 and most papers which are the focus of this survey have been published in the last ten years. The core result presented by Becker is the following: the probability and the severity of punishment deter crime. Therefore, the fine should be maximal since it is a costless transfer whereas the probability of detection and conviction is costly. Much of the recent work has attempted to show why Becker's result may not hold. Copyright 1997 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 11 (1997) Issue (Month): 3 (September) Pages: 267-95 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.