tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3829599.post107257811899902614..comments2024-01-28T00:20:40.933-08:00Comments on Agoraphilia: Optimal Crime and PunishmentUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3829599.post-26774854349193457132007-12-19T01:45:00.000-08:002007-12-19T01:45:00.000-08:00The actual analysis is more complicated than you s...The actual analysis is more complicated than you suggest. Under some circumstances it is optimal to impose more severe punishments on those harder to deter, under some less. You can find a detailed analysis in my old article "Reflections on Optimal Punishment or Should the Rich Pay Higher Fines?," Research in Law and Economics, (1981), in the more recent "Should the Characteristics of Victims and Criminals Count? Payne v Tennessee and Two Views of Efficient Punishment," Boston College Law Review XXXIV No.4, pp.731-769 (July 1993), webbed at http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Payne/Payne.html, and in Chapter 15 of my _Law's Order_, webbed at http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Laws_Order_draft/laws_order_ch_15.htm<BR/><BR/>The simple intuition is that raising expected punishment raises enforcement cost per offense but reduces the number of offenses. It may pay to deal with hard to deter criminals by more severe punishment in order to deter them--think of it as price discrimination--or it may pay to have lower punishment because deterring htem is too costly. <BR/><BR/>The general rules turns out to be expected punishment equal damage done minus marginal cost of deterrence. Marginal cost of deterrence is positive if the supply of offenses is sufficiently inelastic, negative if sufficiently elastic.<BR/><BR/>Details of the analysis are left as an exercise for the reader.David Friedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06543763515095867595noreply@blogger.com