We consider a government’s interrelated decisions of enacting laws prohibiting harmful behavior and choosing how aggressively to enforce those laws. There are three broad policies available to the government in this regard: not prohibiting the act at all, enacting a law and enforcing it, and enacting a law and not enforcing it. When enactment is costly and a fraction of the population reflexively complies with the law once its enactment has been announced (reflecting an expressive function of law), all three policies may be optimal, depending on the severity of the harm from the act and the fraction of reflexive compliers.

中文翻译：

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最优立法和执法的经济理论

我们考虑政府制定禁止有害行为的法律以及选择执行这些法律的力度的相关决定。在这方面，政府可以采用三项广泛的政策：根本不禁止该行为，制定法律并执行，以及制定法律而不执行。当颁布成本高昂，而且一旦颁布颁布后，一小部分人本能地遵守了法律（反映了法律的表达功能），则所有三种政策都可能是最佳的，这取决于该法案造成的伤害的严重程度和比例的自反编译器。