IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v59y2021i3p1403-1416.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legislating for profit and optimal Eighth‐Amendment review

Author

Listed:
  • Murat C. Mungan
  • Thomas J. Miceli

Abstract

We compare a net‐revenue maximizing legislator's criminalization and punishment decisions to the optimal choices. The legislator over‐criminalizes and over‐punishes all criminalized acts when the degree to which it internalizes harms from crimes increases proportionally with the harm. An analysis of Eighth‐Amendment review, in the form of upper‐bounds on fines, reveals that it can both reduce fines to their optimal levels and remove the legislator's incentives to inefficiently criminalize low‐harm acts in the first place. These results provide a rationale for asymmetric judicial review wherein upper‐bounds are imposed on punishment, but lower‐bounds are not.

Suggested Citation

  • Murat C. Mungan & Thomas J. Miceli, 2021. "Legislating for profit and optimal Eighth‐Amendment review," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1403-1416, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:59:y:2021:i:3:p:1403-1416
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12968
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12968
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecin.12968?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Friedman, 1999. "Why Not Hang Them All: The Virtues of Inefficient Punishment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 259-269, December.
    2. Philip A. Curry & Matthew Doyle, 2016. "Integrating Market Alternatives Into The Economic Theory Of Optimal Deterrence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1873-1883, October.
    3. Éric Langlais & Marie Obidzinski, 2017. "Law Enforcement with a Democratic Government," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 162-201.
    4. Thomas J. Miceli, 2008. "Criminal Sentencing Guidelines And Judicial Discretion," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(2), pages 207-215, April.
    5. Murat C. Mungan, 2017. "Over-incarceration and disenfranchisement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 377-395, September.
    6. Mungan, Murat C., 2017. "Reducing crime through expungements," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 398-409.
    7. Nuno Garoupa & Daniel Klerman, 2002. "Optimal Law Enforcement with a Rent-Seeking Government," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 4(1), pages 116-140, January.
    8. Murat C. Mungan, 2012. "The Scope of Criminal Law," Chapters, in: Alon Harel & Keith N. Hylton (ed.), Research Handbook on the Economics of Criminal Law, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Murat C. Mungan, 2017. "Erratum to: Over-incarceration and disenfranchisement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 397-397, September.
    10. repec:oup:amlawe:v:19:y:2017:i:1:p:162-201 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Roger Bowles & Michael Faure & Nuno Garoupa, 2008. "The scope of criminal law and criminal sanctions: An economic view and policy implications," Working Papers 2008-03, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    12. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gilles Grolleau & Murat Mungan & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2022. "Letting Offenders Choose Their Own Punishment ?," Post-Print hal-03694337, HAL.
    2. Miceli, Thomas J. & Mungan, Murat C., 2021. "An economic theory of optimal enactment and enforcement of laws," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yahagi, Ken, 2021. "Law enforcement with motivated agents," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Yohei Yamaguchi & Ken Yahagi, 2024. "Law enforcement and political misinformation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(1), pages 3-36, January.
    3. Yahagi, Ken & Yamaguchi, Yohei, 2023. "Law enforcement with rent-seeking government under voting pressure," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Lundberg, Alexander, 2019. "Leniency Can Increase Deterrence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    5. Eric Langlais & Marie Obidzinski, 2013. "Elected vs appointed public law enforcers," Working Papers hal-04141175, HAL.
    6. Thomas J. Miceli & Murat C. Mungan, 2021. "The limit of law: factors influencing the decision to make harmful acts illegal," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 293-307, September.
    7. Marie Obidzinski & Yves Oytana, 2020. "Presumption of Innocence and Deterrence," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 176(2), pages 377-412.
    8. Tim Friehe & Murat C. Mungan, 2021. "The political economy of enforcer liability for wrongful police stops," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(1), pages 141-157, February.
    9. Timo Goeschl & Ole Jürgens, 2014. "Criminalizing environmental offences: when the prosecutor’s helping hand hurts," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 199-219, April.
    10. Ken Yahagi, 2018. "Private law enforcement with competing groups," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 285-297, August.
    11. Tim Friehe & Thomas J. Miceli, 2017. "On Punishment Severity and Crime Rates," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 19(2), pages 464-485.
    12. Murat C Mungan & Marie Obidzinski & Yves Oytana, 2023. "Accuracy and Preferences for Legal Error," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 190-227.
    13. Florian Baumann & Sophie Bienenstock & Tim Friehe & Maiva Ropaul, 2023. "Fines as enforcers’ rewards or as a transfer to society at large? Evidence on deterrence and enforcement implications," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 229-255, September.
    14. Éric Langlais & Marie Obidzinski, 2015. "Public law enforcers and political competition," EconomiX Working Papers 2015-40, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    15. Zhiyong (John) Liu & Zhewei Wang & Zhendong Yin, 2022. "When is duplication of effort a good thing in law enforcement?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(4), pages 682-708, August.
    16. Gilles Grolleau & Murat C. Mungan & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2022. "Letting offenders choose their punishment?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 607-617, November.
    17. Thomas J. Miceli, 2022. "Counting offenders’ gains? Economic and moral considerations in the determination of criminality," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 475-496, December.
    18. Sophie Bienenstock & Pierre Kopp, 2023. "The extensive reach of the FCPA beyond American borders: Is a bad deal always better than a good trial?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 381-401, September.
    19. Daniel J. D’Amico & Claudia R. Williamson, 2019. "An empirical examination of institutions and cross-country incarceration rates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 217-242, September.
    20. Thomas J. Miceli, 2021. "Should Offenders’ Gains Be Counted? On Efficient Crimes and Unjust Laws," Working papers 2021-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:59:y:2021:i:3:p:1403-1416. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.