Beyond the State of Nature: Introducing Social Interactions in the Economic Model of Crime

Joël van der Weele
Additional contact information
Joël van der Weele: J.W. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Review of Law & Economics, 2012, vol. 8, issue 2, 401-432

Abstract: The standard economic model of crime emphasizes the individual rationality and agency of criminals, while sociological theories typically emphasize the importance of social forces. This essay surveys a recent strand of literature on law enforcement that bridges these two approaches. Using the tools of game theory, it investigates crime as the outcome of the interaction between rational individuals. The survey shows that this analysis leads to a substantially richer set of hypotheses regarding the effect of enforcement than the standard economic model, depending on the classification of the social context, or game, in which agents operate. In doing so, it brings rational choice theories in line with long-standing insights in the field of criminology, as well as providing new analytical distinctions and generalizations.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/1555-5879.1551 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:8:y:2012:i:2:n:3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/rle/html

DOI: 10.1515/1555-5879.1551

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Law & Economics is currently edited by Francesco Parisi

More articles in Review of Law & Economics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().