Fairness versus Welfare, we advance the thesis that social policies should be assessed entirely on the basis of their effects on individuals’ well-being. This thesis implies that no independent weight should be accorded to notions of fairness (other than many purely distributive notions). We...

This article studies the implications for the theory of deterrence of (a) the manner in which individuals' disutility from imprisonment varies with the length of the imprisonment term and (b) discounting of the future disutility and future public costs of imprisonment. Two questions are...

Optimal enforcement of law is examined in a model with specific enforcement effort--effort devoted toward apprehending individuals who have committed a single type of harmful act--and general enforcement effort--effort devoted toward apprehending individuals who have committed any of a range of...

This article analyzes incentives to acquire information about the value of things before sales transactions, and voluntary versus required disclosure of such information. Two distinctions are emphasized: whether information is mere foreknowledge or instead can raise value -- has social value; and...

A model of the occurrence of accidents is used to examine liability and safety regulation as means of controlling risks. According to the model, regulation does not result in the appropriate reduction of risk--because the regulator lacks perfect information--nor does liability result in that...

Self-reporting--the reporting by parties of their own behavior to an enforcement authority--is a commonly observed aspect of law enforcement, such as in the context of environmental and safety regulation. The authors add self-reporting to the model of the control of harmful externalities through...