21.05.2024 American Law & Economics Review's Best Theory Paper Award 2024

We are happy to announce that Prof. Tim Friehe, together with his co-authors Massimo D'Antoni and Avraham Tabbach, has received the American Law & Economics Review's 2024 Best Theory Paper Award.

The award-winning paper is titled "The Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment Revisited" and studies the optimal use of different criminal sanctions when wealth varies across individuals and may be observable or not. Contrary to a key finding in the literature that maximal monetary fines complemented by costly imprisonment are necessary to optimally deter crimes, the authors find that the optimal total sanction for low-wealth individuals may include maximum imprisonment while high-wealth ones may face no imprisonment and often less than maximum fines. The inability to observe wealth aligns policy prescriptions with actual enforcement policy and lowers social welfare.

Details of the paper can be found HERE.

The American Law and Economics Review is the official scholarly journal of the American Law & Economics Assocation, which plays an important role in the development of the Law & Economics field over the last 25 years. More details on the journal can be found HERE.

Prof. Friehe is now the two-time recipient of the award. He was last granted the award in 2022.