Violator Avoidance Activities and Self-Reporting in Optimal Law Enforcement

Laws often encourage violators to self‐report their behavior. This article studies self‐reporting enforcement regimes when violators can engage in “avoidance” activities—activities which lower an offender's risk of apprehension and punishment. Avoidance activities impart two advantages to self‐reporting enforcement regimes over and above advantages identified in prior work. First, self‐reporters do not engage in the costly avoidance activities that they would otherwise undertake. Second, by avoiding avoidance, self‐reporting can sometimes permit the government to deter offenses with less enforcement effort.