Dear colleagues,

The Department of Economics cordially invites you to the WU Economic Research Seminar (Department Seminar) on Wednesday, March 14, with

Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak

(Yale University)

on

"The Economics of Enforcement"

Abstract: Curbing undesirable behaviors through regulation is difficult when regulated agents react in unanticipated ways to circumvent enforcement. When enforcement capacity is limited, regulators rely on indirect methods like information campaigns to encourage compliance with socially desirable actions. We evaluate attempts to reduce over-fishing of the critically endangered Pacific hake by either (a) monitoring and penalizing vendors that sell illegal fish during a ban or (b) discouraging consumers from purchasing hake during the ban. Vendors attempt to circumvent the ban through hidden sales and other means, which we track using secret shoppers. Instituting random monitoring visits are much more effective in curbing hake sales by limiting such cheating, than visits that occur on a predictable schedule. Monitoring at higher frequency (designed to limit spatial and temporal displacement of illegal sales) backfires, because targeted agents learn faster, and cheat more effectively. Details of enforcement policy design are therefore crucial in determining the sustained, longer-term effects of enforcement.

Place and time: Wednesday, March 14, 4.30 – 6.00 p.m., Campus WU, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, building TC, ground floor, room TC.0.01 ERSTE.

The seminar is a cooperation event between the Department of Economics and the Institute for Markets and Strategy at WU.

With best regards,

Harald Oberhofer

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Univ.-Prof. Dr. Harald Oberhofer

Institute for International Economics

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Phone: +43/1/31336-4984

Fax: +43/1/31336-4984

Email: harald.oberhofer@wu.ac.at

Webpage: https://www.wu.ac.at/ie/mitarbeiter/harald-oberhofer/

Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)

Phone: +43/1/7982601-468

Fax: +43/1/7989386

Email: harald.oberhofer@wifo.ac.at

Webpage: http://www.wifo.ac.at/harald_oberhofer