We analyze the strategic decision of firms to voluntarily certify corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in a context where other firms can falsely pretend to be socially responsible. Equilibrium outcomes are crucially determined by consumers' beliefs about the credibility of firms' CSR claims, which depend in turn on the (expected) fines for fraud. First, we show that an increase in s...

The Significance of Dust: Dust studies have already been identified as crucial components of missions to the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and Mercury over the next decade [1,2]. Detailed study of the physical and chemical nature of the fine particulate portion of regoliths of planetary bodies is a key to understanding micrometeorite bombardment and the nature of re-golith formation [e.g., 3]. The Pro...

In this article we consider the possibility that fines could be collected through the tax and social welfare systems in the same way as higher education contributions and child support payments are currently administered. We argue that the existing system of fine collection and enforcement leads to high default rates and reduces the usefulness of fines as a sanction. We consider a range of mode...

We explore the determinants of inspection outcomes across 1.6 million Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) audits from 1990 through 2010. We find that discretion in enforcement differs in state and federally conducted inspections. State agencies are more sensitive to local economic conditions, finding fewer standard violations and fewer serious violations as unemployment increases. Larg...

This paper studies bank regulation in the presence of deposit insurance, where banks have private information on their own ability and their investment strategy. Banks choose the mean and variance of their portfolio return. Regulators wish to control banks’ risk choice, even though all agents are risk neutral and there are no deadweight costs of bank failure, because high risk adversely affects...

We study the use of fines and inspections to control production activities that create external damages. The model contains a continuum of firms, differing in their compliance costs, so that only high-cost firms evade the regulations. Modifying the usual Pigou rule for taxing externalities to account for costly inspections, the external damage from the marginal evader’s activities should exceed...

We study antitrust enforcement that channels price-fixing incentives through setting fines and allocating resources to detection activities. Antitrust fines obey four legal principles: punishments should fit the crime, proportionality, bankruptcy considerations, and minimum fines. Bankruptcy considerations limit maximum fines, ensure abnormal cartel profits and impose a challenge for optimal an...

In the present study, we investigate a new approach to electroencephalography (EEG) three-dimensional (3D) dipole source localization by using a non-recursive subspace algorithm called FINES. In estimating source dipole locations, the present approach employs projections onto a subspace spanned by a small set of particular vectors (FINES vector set) in the estimated noise-only subspace instead ...

An attempt has been made to beneficiate the Indian coking coal fines by a combination of Spiral, flotation and Oleo Flotation processes. Beneficiation studies were also carried out on 0.5mm coal fines using flotation and oleo flotation by splitting at size 0.063mm.Size fraction of 0.5mm-0.063mm and -0.063mm size were treated in flotation and Oleo flotation respectively. The washability studies ...