Between Law-abiding And Illegal: Analysis Of Behavioral Choices In The Perspective Of Law And Economics

The final point of the rule of law is achievement. Law-abiding is a significant topic in thefield of Legal Theory and The construction of socialist rule of law. It is very important to findthe logic of behavioral choices by legalist. Only Injustice of the Law get people inner identityuntil guarantee the law to universal compliance. But Chinese scholars emphasis onintroduction the society members to appeal the law-abiding ethics and shape thelaw-abiding spirit for research the compliance issues, less consideration the market economyenvironment which the society members are, and lack of the exploration aboutlaw-abiding motivation of society members. We can find out the root causes people abide thelaw or not is considerations about legal cost and illegal cost by the analysis methods of Cost–Benefit in the Perspective of Law and Economics. To abide the law is profitable for legalistwhen legal cost lower than illegal cost, and then the rational actors can choose compliance thelaw. To abide the law is unprofitable for legalist when legal cost higher than illegal cost, therational actors affected by profit-driven nature will make illegal choices. Our nation in theprocess of rule of law in practice must reduce the legal cost while let perpetrator pay high feesfor their illegal behavior, and provide corresponding profits and rewards to legalists then thelaw can be abide effectively. Therefore, this paper expose the problem oflegal control in modern society by analyzing actors’ behavioral motives, then analysis theoryand quantify the verification on legal-illegal thesis by application the analysis methods ofLaw and Economics. To break the limitation of abstract and speculative logic structure oftraditional legal to identify the feasibility path on culture people law-abiding concepts andpractices.This paper mainly consists of four parts.The first part: The characteristic of legal and illegal in the perspective of Law andEconomics and the exchange relationship between behavioral choices and law. The authorinvestigates the connotations, denotations and properties of legal and illegal and introducesthe features and basic principles of people behavioral choices. It introduces the way ofthinking of Cost–Benefit and receives exchange mode of behavioral choices and law at thesame time, that is, legal behavior and law have positive exchange relationship and illegalbehavior and law have negative exchange relationship.The second part: The model of legal and illegal behavioral choices and the elements oflegal and illegal economic costs. First, it build every single curve model of legal and illegalbehavior, there are the basic survival on the interests of the individual involved the hard-corebehavior model, subject to the needs of the legal behavior model and the law supply modelafter add the government regulation behavior. Second, using the method of assignment topreliminary validate the behavior choice curve. Third, analysis the economic cost elements oflegal and illegal, and according to the theory achieve the relevant formula to find out the root causes people abide the law or not is measuring and comparing the legal cost and illegal cost.Actors will subjective internalize the laws when legal cost lower than illegal cost, to makelaw-abiding choices consequently.The third part: The practice verification of legal and illegal behavior model. Taking"Drunk driving into criminal penalty " social phenomenon for example, and using the analysismethods of Cost–Benefit to prove each theory points in front of the paper. First, the lawshould be in order to ensure the livelihood of the people priority. This is the absolute principlefor basic human right to live and the principle of formulation and revision the laws whichmust be followed and not allow to ignore. Second, there are negative relations between theillegal behavioral choices and the punishment strength. The more punishment, the less illegalbehavioral happens. Third, law-abiding is based on the comparison of the law and illegal costand make results of behavioral choices.The fourth part: Development and cultivation the law-abiding habits of society people. Ifwe want to develop the law-abiding habit of citizens must reduce the legal cost and improvethe illegal cost as much as possible in order to make the laws becoming more economy andconvenient. And according to conclusions put forward the Suggestions that perfect ourcountry legal regulation to development and cultivation the law-abiding habits of societypeople. In legislate aspect, we should pay attention to the guidance that the rule of law to thehuman nature. Protecting the legalists rights especially their basic survival rights. Fullyconsidering the influence of legal cost and illegal cost to the actors and reducing the illegalcost to the lowest. Besides, we should set up and perfect the effective incentive mechanism inorder to improve the enthusiasm of legalists. In judicial aspect, we should let sanctions adaptto the crimes and grasp the strength of the punishment. Neither punish excessive, nor punishinsufficient. In law enforcement aspect, we should improve the law enforcement probabilityand the cost of illegal behavior.