Controlling Avoidance: Ex Ante Regulation Versus Ex Post Punishment
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Avraham D Tabbach
Efforts to avoid punishment are socially wasteful. Not only do they limit the deterrent effect of punishment, but they may actually lead to the paradoxical result that more severe punishment for crime induces more crime. The law has therefore constantly attempted to deter avoidance efforts and has designed various enforcement measures for this purpose. This paper examines the effects of such measures on avoidance and crime. It distinguishes between two general policy tools: ex ante regulation (e.g., Pigouvian taxes) and ex post punishment of avoidance. The main results of this paper are that (1) ex ante regulation, if feasible, reduces the incentives to engage in avoidance and consequently in crime; whereas (2) ex post punishment of avoidance may induce more avoidance and more crime. The intuitive reason for the latter result is twofold: ex post punishment of avoidance increases not only the costs but also the benefits of avoidance; and avoidance and crime are generally complements. As the control of avoidance through regulation or punishment can be designed into the legal system, the results of this paper can guide policymaking. They suggest, for example, that recent trends to stiffen penalties for substantially obstructive acts might be counter productive, while imposing liability for avoidance efforts on third, economically-related parties such as lawyers and accountants may be productive in curtailing avoidance, since it acts as an ex ante regulation for the principal offender.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Paying the Price for Being Caught: The Economics of Manifest and Non-Manifest Theft in Roman Law
- Measuring Skill in Games with Random Payoffs: Evaluating Legality
- Timing of Crime, Learning and Sanction
- Controlling Avoidance: Ex Ante Regulation Versus Ex Post Punishment
- Damages for Breach of Contract, Impossibility of Performance and Legal Enforceability
- Social Norms, Self-Interest and Ambiguity of Legal Norms: An Experimental Analysis of the Rule vs. Standard Dilemma
- Frischmann's View of "Toward a Theory of Property Rights"
- Causation and Incentives to Choose Levels of Care and Activity Under the Negligence Rule
- A Positive Theory of Strict Liability
- Theory Meets Practice: Barriers to Entry in Merger Analysis
- Expert Testimony, Daubert, and the Determination of Damages
- Split-Estate Negotiations: The Case of Coal-Bed Methane
- Attorneys' Compensation in Litigation with Bilateral Delegation
- The Paradox of Expected Punishment: Legal and Economic Factors Determining Success and Failure in the Fight against Organized Crime
- The Biasing Effects of Memory Distortions on the Process of Legal Decision-Making
- Transaction Costs, Neighborhood Effects, and the Diffusion of the Uniform Sales Act, 1906-47
- A Note on the Social versus Private Value of Suits when Care is Bilateral
- The Hidden Bias of the Vienna Convention on the International Law of Treaties
- Differential Victimization: Efficiency and Fairness Justifications for the Felony Murder Rule
- Underpricing of IPOs and Legal Frameworks Around the World
- Damages or Reinstatement: Incentives and Remedies for Unjust Dismissal
- Jury Verdicts in Drunken Driving Cases
- The Market for Lawyers and Social Capital: Are Informal Rules a Substitute for Formal Ones?
- Competition and Unitization in Oil Extraction: A Tale of Two Tragedies
