Detection Avoidance and Enforcement Theory: Survey and Assessment

Abstract:     
The conventional economic model of enforcement focuses on the cost and effect of the state’s efforts to detect violations. This survey considers attempts to add to this framework the cost and effect of violators’ efforts to avoid detection. The survey describes how the conventional model must be altered to accommodate detection avoidance, and how results derived within the conventional framework are accordingly affected. The survey also considers policies directed at detection avoidance itself. It describes how the recursive nature of detection avoidance effects the efficacy of sanctioning detection avoidance. It also considers alternative, "technological" approaches.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 36

Keywords: Perjury, Obstruction, Contempt, Evidence Tampering, Witness Intimidation, Discovery Sanctions, Spoliation, Evidence Destruction, Document Retention Policies, Detection Avoidance, Sanctioning Detection Avoidance, Recursivity of Detection Avoidance, Technological Approach to Detection Avoidance

JEL Classification: K40, K41

working papers series