Citation

Rasmusen E. Int. Rev. Law Econ. 1995; 15(1): 101-108.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0144-8188(94)00008-I

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Intuition tells us that the optimal penalty and court care to avoid error should rise smoothly with the harm to the victim. This is not always correct; sometimes the optimal penalty and level of court care increase discontinuously with harm, even when penalties deter harm and court care reduces error continuously. This is shown in a model in which the social cost of crime consists of its direct harm, the cost of court care, and the cost of false convictions.