Political Economy Of Rule Evasion And Policy Reform Book

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction	1
1	Rules and their circumvention	8
	An old platitude	8
	On rules	9
	A perfect rule	10
	Evasion and avoidance	13
	Bright lines	14
	Good and bad rules	16
	A better rule?	18
	Why are rules changed?	20
	Information and rule circumvention	22
	An example: avoidance and evasion in a price-controlled market	23
2	Evasion	28
	Tolerating evasion	28
	Subsidizing compliance	30
	In praise of evasion	31
	Cascades of disobedience	33
	Evasion and policy reform	35
	Marginal policy changes	35
	Reluctance to making minor policy changes	36
	Major policy reform	39
	The political economy of evasion and reform	40
	Prohibition, taxation, and evasion	44
	Replacing a prohibition with a tax	45
	Small-scale evasion and major policy shifts	47
	Delayed reform	48
	Rules v. discretion	50
3	Zero tolerance	53
	Characterizing zero tolerance	53
	Benefits of zero tolerance	55
	Drawbacks to zero tolerance	57
	Harm reduction	62
4	Avoidance, futility, and reform	65
	The balloon effect	65
	Futility and perversity	65
	Anti-futility	67
	The effects of policy over time	70
	The treadmill of reform	71
	Rule complexity	73
	Treadmills, radical reform, and collapse	75
	Avoidance and reform: the US Savings & Loan crisis	75
5	Preventive and punitive controls	80
	Futility and ex ante controls	82
	Means, ends, and liberty	83
	Race and policing	84
6	Corruption	90
	Defining corruption	90
	Measuring corruption	92
	Principals-agents-clients	93
	When is corruption likely?	94
	In praise of corruption	94
	Costs of corruption	98
	Cascading	99
	Corruption and growth	100
	Corruption and organization	101
	Comparative dynamics of evasion and corruption	103
	Corruption in business	104
	Rule complexity	106
	Combating corruption	107
	US campaign finance reform	110
7	Evasion and the demise of the Soviet Union	115
	The sorcerer's apprentice	116
	Rule evasion within the planning system	117
	Perestroika-era reforms	119
	Positive feedback	120
	Was it inevitable?	121
	A law of motion of socialism	123
	China and the law of motion of socialism	124
	Post-Soviet corruption and organized crime	127
	Back in the USSR	128
	Glasnost', perestroika and economic crime	129
	Costs and benefits of corruption and organized crime	131
	What should be done?	134
8	Gun control	136
	Evasion and the choice of preventive v. punitive controls	136
	Varieties of anti-control arguments	138
	Balloon effects: weapon substitution	138
	Substituting to more socially costly firearms	140
	Evasion and the firearm futility syllogism	141
	Good guys and bad guys	142
	Jeopardy: Hitler favored gun control	143
	The Second Amendment	145
	A summing up	146
	Gun prevalence and evasion	146
	Responding to perceived increases in firearm crimes	148
	Weakening the link between gun prevalence and availability to high-risk users	149
	Weapons of mass destruction	152
	An aside on the Cold War	152
	Terrorists	154
	Conclusions	156
	Notes	159
	Bibliography	181
	Index	196