2. How I Got Into This Becker and Stigler Landes and Posner Friedman
Why the enforcement of criminal law is not incentive compatible
The cost to the criminal of conviction more than the benefit to the cop
So an obvious opportunity for corruption, costs of preventing it
Replace with a bounty system: Criminal’s fine goes to cop
Landes and Posner
Congratulations: You have just reinvented tort law
The punishment is a damage payment paid to the victim
And it is the victim who prosecutes you and gets you convicted
And here are reasons it might not work for criminal law
Friedman
Here is a real world system, saga period Iceland,
Where it did work–for longer than the U.S. has existed

3. The History Discovery c. 870
Harald Haarfagr unified Norway under his rule
A much stronger monarchy than before
Some people did not like it, and
Their professions were farming and piracy—vikings
So they loaded up their ships and set sail for Iceland
Legal system set up c. 930
Additional developments through 1000
When Iceland went Christian by an arbitrated settlement
c things started going wrong: Sturlung Period
the country came under the rule of the king of Norway

4. Sources of Information
Family sagas
Accounts of events c. 10th century
Written down 13th, 14th c.
Dispute on whether they were composed then or when they were written down
Evidence from Egilsaga
Egil, his father and grandfather had various odd characteristics
Which fit Padgett’s syndrome, a hereditary disease discovered in the 19th century
Suggests the saga was assembled shortly after the events happened
Sagas can be checked against foreign historical sources, match pretty well
Sturlung sagas
Written down in the 13th c.,
shortly after the events they describe
By participants
Surviving written law codes.
Gragas is a collection of private legal notes
Almost all from the very end of the period and just after

5. Gragas vs the Sagas According to Gragas In the sagas
Out of court settlement of a serious offense requires permission from the Logretta
Anyone who attacks someone and is killed falls with forfeit immunity
Various other details
In the sagas
Almost all cases are settled out of court
Many when the Logretta was not in session
There is no mention of anyone getting or not getting permission to settle
Death of the attackers is often counted in calculating the settlement terms
Some other details also don’t fit with Gragas version
This is true of the Sturlung sagas as well as the family sagas
My conclusion: Where they disagree
Trust the sagas
At least for the law in practice

6. Most of the slides are missing—I’ll fix it shortly