Warfighting for cyber deterrence: a strategic and moral imperative

Theories of cyber deterrence are developing rapidly. However, the literature is missing an important ingredient—warfighting for deterrence. This controversial idea, most commonly associated with nuclear strategy during the later stages of the Cold War, affords a number of advantages. It provides enhanced credibility for deterrence, offers means to deal with deterrence failure (including intrawar deterrence and damage limitation), improves compliance with the requirements of just war and ultimately ensures that strategy continues to function in the post-deterrence environment. This paper assesses whether a warfighting for deterrence approach is suitable for the cyber domain. In doing so, it challenges the notion that warfighting concepts are unsuitable for operations in cyberspace. To do this, the work constructs a conceptual framework that is then applied to cyber deterrence. It is found that all of the advantages of taking a warfighting stance apply to cyber operations. The paper concludes by constructing a warfighting model for cyber deterrence. This model includes passive and active defences and cross-domain offensive capabilities. The central message of the paper is that a theory of victory (strategy) must guide the development of cyber deterrence

Deterrence Misapplied: Challenges in Containing a Nuclear Iran

Argues against relying on deterrence against a nuclear Iran by analyzing problems with the disproportionate focus on Iran's current leadership in debates over deterrence strategies and considering the implications of various doctrines of deterrence

Deterrence in Competition Law

This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the deterrence properties of a competition policy regime. On the basis of the economic theory of law enforcement we identify several factors that are likely to affect its degree of deterrence: 1) sanctions and damages; 2) financial and human resources; 3) powers during the investigation; 4) quality of the law; 5) independence; and 6) separation of power. We then discuss how to measure deterrence. We review the literature that use surveys to solicit direct information on changes in the behavior of firms due to the threats posed by the enforcement of antitrust rules, and the literature based on the analysis of hard data. We finally argue that the most challenging task, both theoretically and empirically, is how to distinguish between “good” deterrence and “bad” deterrence

Commentary on the Limits of Compensation and Deterrence in Legal Remedies

Allen comments on papers written by James Cox and Deborah DeMott regarding the deterrence of corporate misconduct. He examines the limits of compensation and deterrence as legal remedies

Entry Deterrence in the Presence of Learning-by-Doing

This paper investigates a signaling entry deterrence model under learning-by-doing. We show that a monopolist’s practice of entry deterrence imposes smaller welfare losses (or larger welfare gains) when learning effects are present than when they are absent, making the intervention of antitrust authorities less urgent. If, however, the welfare loss associated to entry deterrence is still significant, and thus intervention is needed, our paper demonstrates that the incumbent’s practice of entry deterrence is easier to detect by a regulator who does not have access to accurate information about the incumbent’s profit function. Learning-by-doing hence facilitates the regulator’s ability to detect entry deterrence, thus suggesting its role as an “ally” of antitrust authorities.Learning-by-doing, Entry deterrence, Incomplete information, Spillovers

A Behavioral Approach to Compliance: OSHA Enforcement's Impact on Workplace Accidents

This study test for effects of OSHA enforcement, using data on injuries and OSHA inspections for 6,842 manufacturing plants between 1979 and 1985. We use measures of general deterrence (expected inspections at plants like this one) and specific deterrence (actual inspections at this plant). Both measures of deterrence are found to affect accidents, with a 10% increase in inspections with penalties predicted to reduce accidents by 2%. The existence of specific deterrence effects, the importance of lagged effects, the asymmetrical effects of probability and amount of penalty on accidents, and the tendency of injury rates to self-correct over a few years support a behavioral model of the firm's response to enforcement rather than the traditional expected penalty' model of deterrence theory.

An experimental test of the deterrence hypothesis

Crime has to be punished, but does punishment reduce crime? We conduct a neutrally framed laboratory experiment to test the deterrence hypothesis, namely that crime is weakly decreasing in deterrent incentives, i.e. severity and probability of punishment. In our experiment, subjects can steal from another participant's payoff. Deterrent incentives vary across and within sessions. The across subject analysis clearly rejects the deterrence hypothesis: except for very high levels of incentives, subjects steal more the stronger the incentives. We observe two types of subjects: selfish subjects who act according to the deterrence hypothesis and fair-minded subjects for whom deterrent incentives backfire

Judicial Errors and Crime Deterrence: Theory and Experimental Evidence

The standard economic theory of crime deterrence predicts that the conviction of an innocent (type-I error) is as detrimental to deterrence as the acquittal of a guilty individual (type-II error). In this paper, we qualify this result theoretically, showing that in the presence of risk aversion, loss-aversion, or differential sensitivity to procedural fairness, type-I errors can have a larger effect on deterrence than type-II errors. We test these predictions with an experiment where participants make a decision on whether to steal from other individuals, being subject to different probabilities of judicial errors. The results indicate that both types of judicial errors have a large and significant impact on deterrence, but these effects are not symmetric. An increase in the probability of type-I errors has a larger negative impact on deterrence than an equivalent increase in the probability of type-II errors. This asymmetry is largely explained by risk aversion and, to a lesser extent, type-I error aversion.Judicial errors, criminal procedure, procedural fairness, experimental economics, law and economics, crime, deterrence

Deterrence in Competition Law

This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the deterrence properties of a competition policy regime. On the basis of the economic theory of law enforcement we identify several factors that are likely to affect its degree of deterrence: 1) sanctions and damages; 2) financial and human resources; 3) powers during the investigation; 4) quality of the law; 5) independence; and 6) separation of power. We then discuss how to measure deterrence. We review the literature that use surveys to solicit direct information on changes in the behavior of firms due to the threats posed by the enforcement of antitrust rules, and the literature based on the analysis of hard data. We finally argue that the most challenging task, both theoretically and empirically, is how to distinguish between “good†deterrence and “bad†deterrence.Competition Policy; Law Enforcement; Deterrence

Remedy for Now but Prohibit for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools

Antitrust policy involves not just the regulation of anti-competitive behavior, but also an important deterrence effect. Neither scholars nor policymakers have fully researched the deterrence effects of merger policy tools, as they have been unable to empirically measure these effects. We consider the ability of different antitrust actions – Prohibitions, Remedies, and Monitorings – to deter firms from engaging in mergers. We employ cross-jurisdiction/pan-time data on merger policy to empirically estimate the impact of antitrust actions on future merger frequencies. We find merger prohibitions to lead to decreased merger notifications in subsequent periods, and remedies to weakly increase future merger notifications: in other words, prohibitions involve a deterrence effect but remedies do not