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Cited by 1,159

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 46 of the 46 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law

Polinsky, A. Mitchell, Shavell, Steven·2000·Journal of Economic Literature
DOI 10.1257/jel.38.1.45
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Abstract

This article surveys the theory of the public enforcement of law—the use of public agents (inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules. We first present the basic elements of the theory, focusing on the probability of imposition of sanctions, the magnitude and form of sanctions, and the rule of liability. We then examine a variety of extensions of the central theory, concerning accidental harms, costs of imposing fines, errors, general enforcement, marginal deterrence, the principal-agent relationship, settlements, self-reporting, repeat offenders, imperfect knowledge about the probability and magnitude of fines, and incapacitation.

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Metadata

Authors
Polinsky, A. M., & Shavell, S.
Venue
Journal of Economic Literature
Publisher
American Economic Association
Published
2000-03-01
Volume
38
Issue
1
Pages
45-76
ISSN
0022-0515 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1257/jel.38.1.45
OpenAlex
W3122638853
Cited by
1,159
References
46
FWCI
70.45
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1257/jel.38.1.45
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Polinsky, A. M., & Shavell, S. (2000). The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law. Journal of Economic Literature. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.38.1.45

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.