This article deals with the control of hazardous activities in situations where potential victims can affect their exposure to risk. Economists have generally considered ex ante regulation (safety standards) to be a substitute for ex post policies (exposure to tort liability) in order to control externalities. We show that when the victim’s compensation is partial (e.g., due to death or serious bodily injury) there are inefficiencies associated with the exclusive use of negligence liability and that an optimal policy may involve the combined use of ex-ante regulation and ex-post liability. A noteworthy feature of our explanation is that regulation is complementary to liability, in the sense that it may facilitate a higher and more efficient standard of negligence. In that case, it is efficient to set the regulatory safety standard below the standard of negligence, which is consistent with the legal doctrines of negligence per se and the (non) regulatory compliance defense.

中文翻译：

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责任与安全法规的补充作用

本文讨论了在潜在受害者可能影响其风险的情况下对危险活动的控制。为了控制外部性，经济学家普遍认为事前法规（安全标准）可以代替事后政策（侵权责任暴露）。我们表明，当受害者的赔偿是部分赔偿（例如，由于死亡或严重的人身伤害）时，与过失责任的排他性使用相关的效率低下，最佳政策可能涉及事前监管和事后责任。我们的解释的一个值得注意的特征是，规章是责任的补充，从某种意义上讲，它可以促进更高和更有效的过失标准。在这种情况下，