TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bebchuk,Lucian Arye
AU  - Kaplow,Louis
TI  - Optimal Sanctions When the Probability of Apprehension Varies Among Individuals
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4078
PY  - 1992
Y2  - May 1992
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4078
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4078.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Lucian A. Bebchuk
Harvard Law School
1545 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-3138
Fax: 617/812-0554
E-Mail: bebchuk@law.harvard.edu

Louis Kaplow
Harvard University
Hauser 322
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/495-4101
Fax: 617/496-4880
E-Mail: meskridge@law.harvard.edu
AB  - This paper explores how optimal enforcement is affected by the fact that not all individuals are equally easy to apprehend. When the probability of apprehension is the same for all individuals, optimal sanctions will be maximal: as Gary Becker (1968) suggested, raising sanctions and reducing the probability of apprehension saves enforcement resources. This argument necessarily holds only when the enforcement authority knows how difficult an individual will be to apprehend before expending any investigative resources. When differences among individuals exist and can be observed only after apprehension, or not at all, optimal enforcement may involve less than maximal sanctions.
ER  -