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Optimal Sanctions When the Probability of Apprehension Varies Among Individuals / Lucian Arye Bebchuk, Louis Kaplow.

NBER Working papers Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Bebchuk, Lucian Arye.
Contributor:
National Bureau of Economic Research.
Kaplow, Louis.
Series:
Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4078.
NBER working paper series no. w4078
Language:
English
Physical Description:
1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
Place of Publication:
Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1992.
Summary:
This paper explores how optimal enforcement is affected by the fact that not all individuals are equally easy to apprehend. When the probability of apprehension is the same for all individuals, optimal sanctions will be maximal: as Gary Becker (1968) suggested, raising sanctions and reducing the probability of apprehension saves enforcement resources. This argument necessarily holds only when the enforcement authority knows how difficult an individual will be to apprehend before expending any investigative resources. When differences among individuals exist and can be observed only after apprehension, or not at all, optimal enforcement may involve less than maximal sanctions.
Notes:
Print version record
May 1992.

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