Law Enforcement under Incomplete Law: Theory and Evidence from Financial Market Regulation

Katharina Pistor and Chenggang Xu

STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series from Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE

Abstract: This paper studies the design of law-making and law enforcement institutions based on the premise that law is inherently incomplete. Under incomplete law, law enforcement by courts may suffer from deterrence failure, defined as the social-welfare loss that results from the regime's inability to deter harmful actions. As a potential remedy a regulatory regime is introduced. The major functional difference between courts and regulators is that courts enforce law reactively, that is only once others have initiated law enforcement procedures, while regulators enforce law proactively, i.e. on their own initiative. Proactive law enforcement may be superior in preventing harm. However, it incurs high costs and may err in stopping potentially beneficial activities. We study optimal regime selection between a court and a regulatory regime and present evidence from the history of financial market regulation.

Keywords: Incomplete law; law enforcement; financial market; regulation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/te/te442.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: LAW ENFORCEMENT UNDER INCOMPLETE LAW: Theory and Evidence from Financial Market Regulation (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:stitep:442

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