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Frequency of enforcement is more important than the severity of punishment in reducing violation behaviors.
Teodorescu, Kinneret; Plonsky, Ori; Ayal, Shahar; Barkan, Rachel.
  • Teodorescu K; Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 3200003, Israel; kinnerett@technion.ac.il.
  • Plonsky O; Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 3200003, Israel.
  • Ayal S; School of Psychology, Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya 4610101, Israel.
  • Barkan R; Department of Business Administration, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 118(42)2021 10 19.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1598643
ABSTRACT
External enforcement policies aimed to reduce violations differ on two key components the probability of inspection and the severity of the punishment. Different lines of research offer different insights regarding the relative importance of each component. In four studies, students and Prolific crowdsourcing participants (Ntotal = 816) repeatedly faced temptations to commit violations under two enforcement policies. Controlling for expected value, we found that a policy combining a high probability of inspection with a low severity of fines (HILS) was more effective than an economically equivalent policy that combined a low probability of inspection with a high severity of fines (LIHS). The advantage of prioritizing inspection frequency over punishment severity (HILS over LIHS) was greater for participants who, in the absence of enforcement, started out with a higher violation rate. Consistent with studies of decisions from experience, frequent enforcement with small fines was more effective than rare severe fines even when we announced the severity of the fine in advance to boost deterrence. In addition, in line with the phenomenon of underweighting of rare events, the effect was stronger when the probability of inspection was rarer (as in most real-life inspection probabilities) and was eliminated under moderate inspection probabilities. We thus recommend that policymakers looking to effectively reduce recurring violations among noncriminal populations should consider increasing inspection rates rather than punishment severity.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Punishment / COVID-19 Type of study: Prognostic study Limits: Humans Language: English Year: 2021 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Punishment / COVID-19 Type of study: Prognostic study Limits: Humans Language: English Year: 2021 Document Type: Article