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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Loureiro, Paulo Roberto Amorim |
| Abstract: | This paper develops the concept of “criminal symbiosis” to explain the persistence of violence in Brazil. Using official historical series, we document a systematic co-movement between serious crimes and minor offenses, suggesting a process of mutual reinforcement. When minor crimes increase, policing costs rise and the expected punishment for severe offenses declines, enabling escalation into homicide and organized crime. Conversely, targeted repression of minor infractions helps restore social norms and generates measurable deterrent effects. We formalize this mechanism through a dynamic system linking offender stocks, institutional responses, and intergenerational transmission of crime. The framework provides clear testable implications and supports integrated crime-prevention strategies that combine enforcement, rehabilitation, and community resilience. |
| Keywords: | Criminal symbiosis; Crime dynamics; Minor offenses; Homicide; Deterrence; Brazil |
| JEL: | H56 I31 J13 K42 |
| Date: | 2025–06–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126627 |
| By: | Loureiro, Paulo Roberto Amorim |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a general equilibrium model in which ethics and greed coexist as opposing forces shaping social and economic stability. Individuals choose be- tween legal and illicit effort, while ethical agents internalize a moral cost, and the government sets enforcement and penalties. The dynamic interaction between moral restraint, institutional enforcement, and social respect determines the aggregate equilibrium. The model shows that, in the absence of virtue or enforcement, greed dominates and equilibrium collapses; yet, when moral costs or public integrity poli- cies rise, the economy converges to a stable and more equitable state. Mathematical stability is derived from Jury’s conditions, and an empirical strategy is proposed to test these mechanisms using crime, enforcement, and social capital data. Ultimately, morality emerges as an endogenous economic variable—an efficient complement to law, rather than its substitute. |
| Keywords: | Ethics, Greed, General Equilibrium, Crime, Enforcement, Welfare Policy, Spider-Man, Moral Economics |
| JEL: | D13 D5 I38 J12 K42 |
| Date: | 2025–05–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126613 |
| By: | Jamison, Mark A. |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests that antitrust authorities should focus on harmful competitive advantages. These are largely Porterian and Smithian advantages created by firms seeking to disadvantage rivals, governments inadvertently hindering competition, and governments protecting favored stakeholders and partisans without corresponding improvements in economic efficiency. The proposed approach is intended to enable antitrust to get to the heart of market power rather than address symptoms, address market power concerns in dynamic situations, and to make up for antitrust's tendency to ignore competition problems created by governments. This approach would reorient some antitrust resources away from investigating and prosecuting cases and towards investigations that identify problems and develop solutions before harms occur. |
| Keywords: | antitrust, market definition, competitive advantage, regulation |
| JEL: | K21 L12 L22 L4 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse25:331279 |
| By: | Howell, Bronwyn E.; Potgieter, Petrus H. |
| Abstract: | The exhaustion principle, or first-sale doctrine, limits copyright holders' control after the authorised sale of a tangible copy, enabling resale, lending, and preservation. In digital markets, however, this principle has largely become irrelevant, as distribution models now rely on licences that prevent secondary use. This paper examines how the disappearance of copyright exhaustion affects four key digital markets – books, music, video, and software – along six dimensions: access, preservation, privacy, transactional clarity, user innovation, and platform competition. Drawing on a structured review of legal and economic literature, it assesses both the erosion of these benefits and possible remedies, including forward-and-delete technologies, common law exhaustion, relaxed anti-circumvention rules, and enhanced fair use provisions for libraries. The study argues that digital distribution has shifted the balance of rights too far towards copyright holders and that differentiated regulatory reforms may be needed to restore a socially beneficial equilibrium that preserves both market efficiency and user rights. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse25:331276 |
| By: | Haas, Violeta I.; Elshehawy, Ashrakat; Frey, Arun; Riaz, Sascha; Roemer, Tobias |
| Abstract: | What drives the supply of crime news? While prior research focuses on the news media, we study a crucial upstream gatekeeper of information: the police. We argue that the police act as strategic bureaucrats who increase the disclosure of out-group cues (ethnicity, nationality) when immigration is salient to signal competence and transparency to the public. To test this, we use LLMs to annotate a novel dataset of about one million press releases published by local police stations across Germany between 2014 and 2024. Using a regression discontinuity in time design, we demonstrate an increase in out-group cues in police communications (1) following a nationwide shock to immigration salience (the 2015/16 Cologne New Year’s Eve assaults), and (2) in the days before regional elections in which immigration is a salient campaign issue. Our findings demonstrate how bureaucratic discretion shapes the supply of politically charged information. |
| Keywords: | bureaucratic politics; immigration; large language models, natural language processing, police |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:131173 |
| By: | Berniell, Inés; Facchini, Gabriel; Perez-Vincent, Santiago M. |
| Abstract: | This study examines the challenges of analyzing domestic violence (DV) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and seeks to improve measurement through two main contributions. First, we collect and describe traditional DV data sources (household surveys and administrative records) across 19 countries. The analysis reveals substantial gaps in data availability, with infrequent and outdated survey efforts in most countries. Nevertheless, surveys confirm high DV prevalence, with at least one in five women reporting victimization in all countries examined, and highlight pervasive underreporting that limits the reliability of administrative crime data. Second, we examine the properties of a novel, high-frequency indicator based on online search behavior: the Google Domestic Violence Index. Using administrative data from eight LAC countries, we find that the index is strongly correlated with calls to DV helplines but shows weaker association with police reports or emergency calls. The evidence suggests that the index captures early-stage, information-seeking behavior and may provide a real-time signal of latent victimization not reflected in official statistics. Our findings underscore the potential of digital data to complement traditional sources and to support more timely, responsive approaches to tracking DV. |
| Keywords: | domestic violence;Google search |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J18 I18 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14399 |
| By: | Alemanno, Alberto (HEC Paris) |
| Abstract: | This edited volume critically analyses the existing 'EU ethical framework' while contextualising it within the unique transnational setting that characterises the EU public administration and its various institutions. Moving beyond single institutions, the volume adopts an exhaustive approach to analyse common normative and institutional challenges. It explores key questions about the purpose, design, enforcement, and effectiveness of EU ethical rules. The book is structured into four parts, covering the foundations of the EU ethics system, the ethical frameworks of key EU institutions, cross-cutting issues including the new interinstitutional ethics body and government affairs regulation, and the external dimension such as anti-corruption and foreign interference. Ultimately, the volume aims to systematise the EU's ethical infrastructure, identify major shortcomings, and propose potential solutions and reforms, reflecting normatively on how the EU can improve. |
| Keywords: | EU; Law; Governance |
| JEL: | K00 |
| Date: | 2025–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1573 |
| By: | Colliard, Jean-Edouard (HEC Paris - Finance Department); Steinbach, Armin (HEC Paris; Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | Federalism notoriously struggles with the allocation of competences between the federal and sub-federal levels. Legal doctrines vary across jurisdictions in how they allocate authority. From an efficiency perspective, the allocation is determined through a "federalism test" comparing the efficiency of each level of government. This comparison is difficult because which allocation will be more efficient in the future is uncertain and potentially endogenous to the current allocation. We formally define efficiency in such a context, show that a "static" federalism test that neglects endogeneity can fail to implement the efficient allocation, and propose a "dynamic" test to address the issue. We discuss the relevance of our results in light of jurisprudence in different policy areas. |
| Keywords: | Federalism; Subsidiarity; Centralization; Decentralization |
| JEL: | D72 F55 H77 K19 K33 |
| Date: | 2025–11–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1587 |