The Efficiency of Private Enforcement of Public Law Claims in Estonia

Abstract

In Estonia, since 2001 the function of the enforcement of public law claims, such as fines or taxes, has been transferred to freelance bailiffs. The intention was to create profit motives for private enforcers to increase the effectiveness of the enforcement system. In this paper it is shown that the remuneration scheme for bailiffs that is currently applied tends to lead to inefficiently low level of enforced public law claims. Through quantitative calculations it is illustrated that there might exist alternatives that significantly increase the economic efficiency of the enforcement system.