Ponente:  Fernando Peinado (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

Título: "Modeling Crime from a Behavioral Economics Perspective"

Abstract:  "The objective of this paper is to unveil the consequences of aggravating and mitigating circumstances from a behavioral economics perspective at two different times: when legislators decide law provisions and public budgets, and when judges apply these laws during trials. We develop a static optimization model of social welfare changes after criminal actions suitable to account for a group of heterogeneous offenders. The model includes monetary and non-monetary characteristics of the offenders, specific monetary sanctions, specific non-monetary sanctions, a general enforcement effort, and it satisfies the proportionality principle. Our model can formally explain many of the intuitive and counterintuitive empirical findings of previous literature from a social welfare optimization perspective."