This paper analyzes how income taxation affects optimal law enforcement. A key insight of the analysis is that if monetary sanctions are deductible, income taxation is equivalent to increasing offenders' wealth. This implies, for example, that income taxation reduces the social costs of crime...

Efforts to avoid punishment are generally deemed undesirable and therefore punished or otherwise regulated. In reality, however, not all avoidance efforts are punishable or regulable, at least not to the same degree. For practical or sometimes constitutional reasons, certain efforts to avoid...

This paper explores the effects of public enforcement, in general, and punishment, in particular, on crime levels if offenders can engage in avoidance activities. Avoidance reduces the probability or magnitude of punishment. In general, offenders can reduce their expected punishment either by...

This paper explores the effects of alternative tax rules regarding monetary sanctions and litigation costs on the levels of criminal activity and litigation expenditure. The key insight is that taxation may affect crime not only by changing the relative expected returns from legal and criminal...