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Cooperation, Deterrence, and the Ecology of Regulatory Enforcement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

John T. Scholz
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Abstract

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An ecological model based on evolutionary game theory is developed to analyze the role of egoistic cooperation in regulatory enforcement. The model demonstrates that socially beneficial cooperation depends on 1) a combination of cooperative and deterrence routines in an enforcement strategy that is at once vengeful and forgiving, 2) firms concerned enough about future enforcement encounters to forgo short-term gains from evasion, and 3) institutional arrangements that provide suitable sanctions and cost tradeoffs for existing enforcement and evasion technologies in the particular enforcement arena. Factors limiting the advantage of cooperation are also reviewed, and other applications of the model are suggested.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , 1984 , pp. 179 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

Since its initial presentation at the Law and Society Association Meeting in Toronto, 1982, this article has benefited from the comments of many people, particularly from Robert Axelrod, Robert Kagan, John Ferejohn, Christopher Stone, the Politics and Organizations Group at Stanford, and the reviewers and especially the editor, Richard Lempert, of the Law & Society Review. Research support was provided by National Science Foundation grant DAR 80-11839.

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