Why is the Law Obeyed by People:An Interpretation of Law and Economics Approach

Law abiding is an important part in rule of law,thus exploration of the intrinsic motivation of law-abiding acts is deemed of great significance.From the perspective of "Homo economics" and with the Law and Economics research approach,this paper argues that a law-abiding act is not a behavior driven by the law,morality or emotion,but an inevitable response to the overall consideration of compliance costs or benefits.When incompliance tolls swallow up compliance costs,law-abiding acts become an economic choice. On this condition,to make compliance a commonplace,compliance costs shall be reduced while incompliance tolls increased on an on-going basis through a penalty pattern featuring government-citizen binary interaction.With this understanding,this paper then embarks on a preliminary empirical analysis of the on-going "tobacco-controlling campaign",in an effort to identify the root cause of the failure of tobacco-controlling.