A Note on Optimal Law Enforcement with Legal Aid

Nuno Garoupa and Frank Stephen

No 4113, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The economic literature on enforcement is generally pessimistic concerning the use of legal aid. In this Paper we show that legal aid can be part of optimal law enforcement. The rationale behind our result is that with legal aid, in a system with legal or judicial error, both guilty and innocent individuals are better off because the marginal cost of defense expenditure is reduced. If, on average, legal aid helps the innocent more than the guilty a government seeking to maximize social welfare will want to use it in order to increase deterrence.

Keywords: Sanction; Self-reporting; Legal aid (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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