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.