This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Franckx, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Penalty and Crime with Lumpy Choices

Some Further Considerations

Royal Military Academy of Belgium, Brussels, Laurent.Franckx{at}rma.ac.be

This paper clarifies an issue in the Hirshleifer and Rasmusen-Tsebelis controversy on the effects of penalties on crime: what is the effect of penalties if the transgression of law has a discrete nature and if the law enforcer cannot act as Stackelberg leader? We differentiate between technical (compliance costs) and institutional (penalties) parameters in the potential transgressor’s payoff’s functions. Depending on the penalty structure, we obtain equilibria either in pure or in mixed strategies. We confirm that the role played by penalties in mixed strategy equilibria is fundamentally different from the role they play in pure strategies. We also identify sufficient conditions for the implementability and uniqueness of given equilibria when there are restrictions on the penalties and/or on the incentive schemes for the law enforcers. Finally, we give a rationalization for the use of mixed strategies as a solution concept in law enforcement games.

Key Words: economic analysis of law enforcement

Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4, 403-421 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0951629804046148


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?