A reconsideration of marginal deterrence in a multi-layered government

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German Working Papers in Law and Economics

AUTHOR:
Laurent Franckx

TITLE:
A reconsideration of marginal deterrence in a multi-layered government

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Laurent Franckx (2001) "A reconsideration of marginal deterrence in a multi-layered government", German Working Papers in Law and Economics: Vol. 2001: Article 4.
http://www.bepress.com/gwp/default/vol2001/iss1/art4

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ABSTRACT:
We consider enforcement of a legal norm in a setting where the legislator determines the penalties for noncompliance, but where the enforcement agency determines itself the intensity of monitoring. We show that, in this context, the penalty structure aects not only the behavior of potential transgressors, but also the enforcer’s. This implies that penaltiesshould not necessarily increase with the level of transgression in order to obtain marginal deterrence. This results extends previous similar results to settings where marginal deterrence would be optimal in one-layered legal enforcement.