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Estudios de economía
On-line version ISSN 0718-5286
Estudios de Economía vol.46 no.1 Santiago June 2019
http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-52862019000100031
Articles
Tolerance of noncompliance: Discretion rather than simple rules?
Tolerancia al incumplimiento: ¿discreción en lugar de reglas simples?
1DFCS-UDELAR, Departamento de Economía, Uruguay
We argue that societies sometimes choose not to enforce the law to gain “flexibility”. Especially developing countries face a dilemma between discretion and commitment to only partially-contingent rules. Rules are good for incentives, but discretion may be more “flexible”. We embed this dilemma in a political model and show that citizens will not support strong enforcement institutions unless the state is able to commit to sufficiently sophisticated redistributive policies.
Keywords: Discretion; commitment; simple rules; informality; enforcement; JEL Classification: D71, D81, E26, O17
Argumentamos que existen ocasiones en que las sociedades pueden elegir no hacer cumplir la ley para ganar “flexibilidad”. En particular, los países en desarrollo se enfrentan a un dilema entre discreción y compromiso a reglas parcialmente contingentes. Las reglas son buenas en términos de incentivos, pero la discreción brinda “flexibilidad”. Enmarcamos este dilema en un modelo político y mostramos que los ciudadanos no apoyan la aplicación de una fiscalización fuerte a menos que el Estado pueda comprometerse a políticas redistributivas suficientemente sofisticadas.
Palabras clave: Discreción; compromiso; reglas simples; informalidad; fiscalización; Clasificación JEL: D71, D86, E26, O17
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Received: April 0, 2018; Accepted: September 0, 2018
Este es un artículo publicado en acceso abierto bajo una licencia Creative Commons
