Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Bos, Iwan
Author-workplace-name: RS: GSBE Theme Conflict & Cooperation, Organisation,Strategy & Entrepreneurship
Title: A Theory of “Too Big To Jail”
Abstract: Motivated by some recent examples, this paper employs a model of public law enforcement to explain why it may not be in society’s interest to send criminals to prison. We establish two main findings. First, independent of the lawbreaker’s societal position, imprisonment is suboptimal when the harm from the illegal activity is sufficiently small. Second, for a given level of harm, imprisonment is suboptimal when the lawbreaker is sufficiently important. This latter result thus provides a rationale for why some parties are taken to be “too big to jail”.<br/>
Classification-JEL: d63,k42
Series: GSBE Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 20210430
Number: 007
File-URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/64272298/RM21007.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 385464
Handle: Repec:unm:umagsb:2021007
DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2021007