Legislating for profit and optimal Eighth‐Amendment review
比较了追求净收入最大化的立法者与最优选择在定罪和惩罚上的差异，发现当立法者内化犯罪危害的程度与危害成正比时，会过度定罪和惩罚；第八修正案审查（罚款上限）能降低罚款至最优水平并消除立法者低效定罪低危害行为的动机。
Abstract We compare a net‐revenue maximizing legislator's criminalization and punishment decisions to the optimal choices. The legislator over‐criminalizes and over‐punishes all criminalized acts when the degree to which it internalizes harms from crimes increases proportionally with the harm. An analysis of Eighth‐Amendment review, in the form of upper‐bounds on fines, reveals that it can both reduce fines to their optimal levels and remove the legislator's incentives to inefficiently criminalize low‐harm acts in the first place. These results provide a rationale for asymmetric judicial review wherein upper‐bounds are imposed on punishment, but lower‐bounds are not.