Injurers often purchase the property of potential victims to avoid liability or to comply with regulations. This paper shows that injurers subject to cost–benefit standards could profit from buying out victims even if they attach no value to the victims' property. Because buyouts allow...

Harsh sanctions are conventionally assumed to primarily benefit vulnerable targets. Contrary to this perception, this article shows that augmented sanctions often serve the less vulnerable targets. While decreasing crime, harsher sanctions also induce the police to shift enforcement efforts from...

An injurer’s activity often exposes multiple potential victims to the risk of harm. We show that under negligence—the tort system’s dominant regime—such victims face a collective-action problem in choosing their activity levels. An increase in one victim’s activity level confers a...

Jeremy Bentham and Gary Becker established the tradition of analyzing criminal law in utilitarian and economic terms. This seminal book continues that tradition with specially commissioned, original papers that span the philosophical foundations of the use of economics in criminal law, both...