Does Crime Pay? A Classroom Demonstration of Monitoring and Enforcement

This article presents a classroom game in which students choose whether or not to comply with pollution regulations. By varying the level of monitoring and fines for noncompliance, the game shows students how the probability and severity of enforcement affects incentives for compliance. The game can be adapted for settings other than environmental regulation and can be used in a variety of classes including regulation, law and economics, environmental economics, public economics, or economics of crime classes. It can easily be conducted in a 50-minute class period.