{"title":"Dynamic Amnesty Programs","authors":"Samuel Kapon","doi":"10.1257/aer.20211428","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A regulator faces a stream of agents engaged in crimes with stochastic returns. The regulator designs an amnesty program, committing to a time path of punishments for criminals who report their crimes. In an optimal program, time variation in the returns from crime can generate time variation in the generosity of amnesty. I construct an optimal time path and show that it exhibits amnesty cycles. Amnesty becomes increasingly generous over time until it hits a bound, after which the cycle resets. Agents engaged in high return crime report at the end of each cycle, while agents engaged in low return crime report always. (JEL D82, D86, K42)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":10.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Economic Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20211428","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
A regulator faces a stream of agents engaged in crimes with stochastic returns. The regulator designs an amnesty program, committing to a time path of punishments for criminals who report their crimes. In an optimal program, time variation in the returns from crime can generate time variation in the generosity of amnesty. I construct an optimal time path and show that it exhibits amnesty cycles. Amnesty becomes increasingly generous over time until it hits a bound, after which the cycle resets. Agents engaged in high return crime report at the end of each cycle, while agents engaged in low return crime report always. (JEL D82, D86, K42)
期刊介绍:
The American Economic Review (AER) stands as a prestigious general-interest economics journal. Founded in 1911, it holds the distinction of being one of the nation's oldest and most esteemed scholarly journals in economics. With a commitment to academic excellence, the AER releases 12 issues annually, featuring articles that span a wide spectrum of economic topics.