IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sip/dpaper/03-037.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment when Wealth is Unobservable

Author

Listed:
  • A. Mitchell Polinsky

    (Stanford University and National Bureau of Economic Research)

Abstract

This article studies the optimal use of fines and imprisonment when an offender’s level of wealth is private information that cannot be observed by the enforcement authority. In a model in which there are two levels of wealth, I derive the optimal mix of sanctions, including the imprisonment sentence imposed on offenders who do not pay the fine — referred to as the “alternative” imprisonment sentence. Among other things, I demonstrate that if imprisonment sanctions are used, the optimal alternative imprisonment sentence is sufficiently high that high-wealth individuals prefer to pay a fine exceeding the wealth level of low-wealth individuals and bear a lower (possibly no) imprisonment sentence rather than to pretend to be low-wealth individuals. I also show that if the optimal enforcement system would rely exclusively on fines when wealth is observable, the inability to observe wealth is detrimental because higher fines then could not be levied on higher-wealth individuals. In this case, it may be desirable when wealth is unobservable to impose an imprisonment sentence on offenders who do not pay the fine — who will be low-wealth offenders — in order to induce high-wealth offenders to pay the fine. However, if the optimal enforcement system would employ both fines and imprisonment sentences when wealth is observable, the inability to observe wealth is not detrimental. In this case, the same sanctions would be chosen if wealth is unobservable and these sanctions lead high-wealth individuals to pay more than low-wealth individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2004. "The Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment when Wealth is Unobservable," Discussion Papers 03-037, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:03-037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/repec/sip/03-037.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garoupa, Nuno, 1998. "Optimal Law Enforcement and Imperfect Information When Wealth Varies among Individuals," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(260), pages 479-490, November.
    2. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1984. "The optimal use of fines and imprisonment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 89-99, June.
    3. Nuno Garoupa & Hugh Gravelle, 2003. "Efficient Deterrence does not Require that the Wealthy should be Able to Buy Justice," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 159(3), pages 545-552, September.
    4. Polinsky, A Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1991. "A Note on Optimal Fines When Wealth Varies among Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 618-621, June.
    5. Polinsky, A. Mitchell, 2006. "Optimal fines and auditing when wealth is costly to observe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 323-335, September.
    6. Lott, John R, Jr, 1987. "Should the Wealthy Be Able to "Buy Justice"?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(6), pages 1307-1316, December.
    7. Chu, C. Y. Cyrus & Jiang, Neville, 1993. "Are fines more efficient than imprisonment?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 391-413, July.
    8. Levitt, Steven D., 1997. "Incentive compatibility constraints as an explanation for the use of prison sentences instead of fines," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 179-192, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kangoh Lee, 2017. "Norms and monetary fines as deterrents, and distributive effects," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 1-27, May.
    2. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, 2009. "Public Enforcement of Law," Chapters, in: Nuno Garoupa (ed.), Criminal Law and Economics, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe, 2013. "Cheap Talk About The Detection Probability," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(01), pages 1-16.
    4. Abay, Kibrom A. & Kahsay, Goytom Abraha, 2018. "Long-term effects of alternative deterrence policies: Panel data evidence from traffic punishments in Denmark," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-19.
    5. Montag, Josef & Tremewan, James, 2020. "Let the punishment fit the criminal: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 423-438.
    6. Carole Billiet & Sandra Rousseau, 2014. "How real is the threat of imprisonment for environmental crime?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 183-198, April.
    7. Polinsky, A. Mitchell, 2006. "Optimal fines and auditing when wealth is costly to observe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 323-335, September.
    8. Bourgeon, Jean-Marc & Picard, Pierre, 2007. "Point-record driving licence and road safety: An economic approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 235-258, February.
    9. Gilles Grolleau & Murat C. Mungan & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2022. "Letting offenders choose their punishment?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 607-617, November.
    10. Kibrom A. Abay, 2018. "How Effective Are Non‐Monetary Instruments for Safe Driving? Panel Data Evidence on the Effect of the Demerit Point System in Denmark," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 120(3), pages 894-924, July.
    11. Bac, Mehmet, 2010. "The interaction between potential criminals' and victims' demands for guns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(5-6), pages 337-343, June.
    12. Bac, Mehmet & Kanti Bag, Parimal, 2009. "Graduated penalty scheme," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 281-289, December.
    13. Georges Dionne & Ying Liu, 2021. "Effects of Insurance Incentives on Road Safety: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in China," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(2), pages 453-477, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Montag, Josef & Tremewan, James, 2020. "Let the punishment fit the criminal: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 423-438.
    2. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 2007. "The Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 403-454, Elsevier.
    3. Garoupa, Nuno & Klerman, Daniel, 2004. "Corruption and the optimal use of nonmonetary sanctions," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 219-225, June.
    4. Polinsky, A. Mitchell, 2006. "Optimal fines and auditing when wealth is costly to observe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 323-335, September.
    5. Rousseau, Sandra, 2009. "Empirical Analysis of Sanctions for Environmental Offenses," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 161-194, December.
    6. Carole Billiet & Sandra Rousseau, 2014. "How real is the threat of imprisonment for environmental crime?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 183-198, April.
    7. Goodman, John C. & Porter, Philip, 2002. "Is the criminal justice system just?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 25-39, July.
    8. Motta, Alberto & Burlando, Alfredo, 2007. "Self reporting reduces corruption in law enforcement," MPRA Paper 5332, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Jun 2007.
    9. Kangoh Lee, 2017. "Norms and monetary fines as deterrents, and distributive effects," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 1-27, May.
    10. Waldfogel, Joel, 1995. "Are Fines and Prison Terms Used Efficiently? Evidence on Federal Fraud Offenders," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 107-139, April.
    11. Kurmangaliyeva Madina, 2018. "Missing Rich Offenders: Traffic Accidents and the Impartiality of Justice," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-29, March.
    12. Hugh Gravelle & Nuno Garoupa, 2002. "Optimal Deterrence with Legal Defense Expenditure," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 366-379, July.
    13. Nøstbakken, Linda, 2008. "Fisheries law enforcement--A survey of the economic literature," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 293-300, May.
    14. Curry, Philip A. & Klumpp, Tilman, 2009. "Crime, punishment, and prejudice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 73-84, February.
    15. Thomas J. Miceli, 2018. "On proportionality of punishments and the economic theory of crime," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 303-314, December.
    16. Earnhart, Dietrich, 1999. "Multiple Penalty Mechanisms in a Principal-Agent Model under Different Institutional Arrangements," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 168-189, March.
    17. Steven Shavell & A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2000. "The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 45-76, March.
    18. Alexander Klein, 2000. "Jail or Fine - Let Them Choose," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0337, Econometric Society.
    19. Rizzolli, Matteo & Tremewan, James, 2018. "Hard labor in the lab: Deterrence, non-monetary sanctions, and severe procedures," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 107-121.
    20. Garoupa, Nuno, 2001. "Optimal magnitude and probability of fines," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(9), pages 1765-1771, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:03-037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Shor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cestaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.