This paper contains the chapters on public enforcement of law and on criminal law from a general, forthcoming book, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2003). By public law enforcement is meant the use of public law enforcement agents -such as police, tax inspectors, regulatory personnel -to enforce legal rules. A number of important dimensions of public law enfor...

In coercive relations, threats of negative sanctions extract valued positive sanctions from coercees. Only when coercion is direct, however, are the negative sanctions controlled by the coercer who benefits from the threats. Not previously investigated, indirect coercion relies on threats and negative sanctions that are external to the exploitative relation. We suggest that indirect coercion is...

As a widely used tool of foreign policy, economic sanctions take many forms. They include mandating trade restrictions (for example, limiting imports from or exports to a sanctioned nation), freezing bank accounts, limiting international travel to and from an area, imposing additional tariffs, and exerting other pressures that are intended to slow key economic activities. Since the end of the C...