Optimal imprisonment and fines with non-discriminatory sentences

Authors

Nuno Garoupa
Murat C. Mungan, Texas A&M University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2019

Journal Title

Economics Letters

ISSN

0165-1765

DOI

10.1016/j.econlet.2019.06.016

Abstract

When considering the optimal combination of monetary sanctions (costless) and imprisonment (costly) as deterrents, the traditional result is that imprisonment should not be imposed until monetary sanctions are completely exhausted. Therefore, imprisonment acts as a mere supplement to maximal fines. We show that, when wealthvaries across individuals, it could be efficient to use imprisonment in combination with fines that do not exhaust the wealth of all individuals. The rationale is that, generally, it is impractical to tailor criminal sanctions as a continuous function of individuals’ wealth.

First Page

105

Last Page

108

Num Pages

3

Volume Number

182

Publisher

Elsevier

Recommended Citation

Nuno Garoupa & Murat C. Mungan, Optimal imprisonment and fines with non-discriminatory sentences, 182 Econ. Letters 105 (2019).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1844