Achieving compliance when legal sanctions are non-deterrent

TY - JOUR

T1 - Achieving compliance when legal sanctions are non-deterrent

AU - Tyran, Jean-Robert

AU - Feld, Lars P.

N1 - JEL Classification: K42

PY - 2006

Y1 - 2006

N2 - Law backed by nondeterrent sanctions (mild law) has been hypothesized to achieve compliance because of norm activation. We experimentally investigate the effects of mild law in the provision of public goods by comparing it to severe law (deterrent sanctions) and no law. The results show that exogenously imposing mild law does not achieve compliance, but compliance is much improved if mild law is endogenously chosen, i.e., selfimposed. We show that voting for mild law induces expectations of cooperation, and that people tend to comply with the law if they expect many others to do so

AB - Law backed by nondeterrent sanctions (mild law) has been hypothesized to achieve compliance because of norm activation. We experimentally investigate the effects of mild law in the provision of public goods by comparing it to severe law (deterrent sanctions) and no law. The results show that exogenously imposing mild law does not achieve compliance, but compliance is much improved if mild law is endogenously chosen, i.e., selfimposed. We show that voting for mild law induces expectations of cooperation, and that people tend to comply with the law if they expect many others to do so

U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2006.00444.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2006.00444.x

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0347-0520

VL - 108

SP - 135

EP - 156

JO - Scandinavian Journal of Economics

JF - Scandinavian Journal of Economics

IS - 1

ER -