We analyze the effect of judicial errors on the innovative activity of firms. If successful, the innovative effort allows to take new actions that may be ex-post welfare enhancing (legal) or decreasing (illegal). Deterrence in this setting works by affecting the incentives to invest in innovation (average deterrence). Type-I errors, through over-enforcement, discourage innovative effort while type-II errors (under-enforcement) spur it. The ex-ante expected welfare effect of innovations shapes the optimal policy design. When innovations are ex-ante welfare improving, laissez-faire is chosen. When innovations are instead welfare decreasing, law enforcement should limit them through average deterrence. We consider several policy environments differing in the instruments available. Enforcement effort is always positive and fines are (weakly) increasing in the social loss of innovations. In some cases accuracy is not implemented, contrary to the traditional model where it always enhances (marginal) deterrence, while in others it is improved selectively only on type-II errors (asymmetric protocols of investigation).
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Paper provided by IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University in its series Working Papers with number
337.
Length: Date of creation: 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:337
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Giovanni Immordino & Marco Pagano & Michele Polo, 2006.
"Norm Flexibility and Private Initiative,"
Working Papers
314, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
[Downloadable!]
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Giovanni Immordino & Marco Pagano & Michele Polo, 2006.
"Norm Flexibility and Private Initiative,"
CSEF Working Papers
163, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 01 Nov 2006.
[Downloadable!]
Gual, Jordi & Hellwig, Martin F. & Perrot, Anne & Polo, Michele & Rey, Patrick & Schmidt, Klaus M. & Stenbacka, Rune, 2005.
"An Economic Approach to Article 82,"
Discussion Papers in Economics
745, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
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