Tolerance of noncompliance: Discretion rather than simple rules?

Alvaro Forteza () and Cecilia Noboa ()

Estudios de Economia, 2019, vol. 46, issue 1, 31-59

Abstract: We argue that societies sometimes choose not to enforce the law to gain “flexibility”. Especially developing countries face a dilemma between discretion and commitment to only partially-contingent rules. Rules are good for incentives, but discretion may be more “flexible”. We embed this dilemma in a political model and show that citizens will not support strong enforcement institutions unless the state is able to commit to sufficiently sophisticated redistributive policies.

Keywords: Discretion; commitment; simple rules; informality; enforcement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D81 E26 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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