Specific versus General Enforcement of Law

Bibliographic Data

ID10179873
AuthorsSteven Shavell (0000-0002-8902-1128, National Bureau of Economic Research, corresponding author)
Year1991
Volume99
Issue5
Pages1088-1108
Publication date1991-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3808 • E-ISSN: 1537-534X
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/261790
OpenAlexW2006113361
LanguageEN
Citations received12

Optimal enforcement of law is examined in a model with specific enforcement effort--effort devoted toward apprehending individuals who have committed a single type of harmful act--and general enforcement effort--effort devoted toward apprehending individuals who have committed any of a range of harmful acts (a police officer on patrol, for instance, is able to apprehend many types of violators of law). If enforcement effort is specific, optimal sanctions are extreme for all acts. If enforcement effort is general, however, optimal sanctions rise with the harmfulness of acts and reach the extreme only for the most harmful acts. Copyright 1991 by University of Chicago Press

Business · Computer security · Economics · Enforcement · Law and economics · Law enforcement · Officer · Political science · Sanctions · Computer Science · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Regulation and Compliance Studies

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