Insecurity
A Theory of Crime and Vigilance
Jorge Vásquez
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2022, Pages 255-303
Abstract:
This paper develops a theory of crime in which potential victims elect their vigilance levels. When vigilance expenses are greater than expected property losses, an increase in penalties raises crime, namely, a criminal Laffer curve emerges. This curve is higher and peaks earlier when victims face higher costs. Thus, the government may wish to subsidize vigilance rather than increase penalties. Indeed, an increase in penalties may shift the vigilance levels further away from their socially optimal ones. Finally, the crime rate first rises and then falls in the property value at stake, which is consistent with the empirical evidence.
Does greater police funding help catch more murderers?
David Bjerk
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of police funding on the fraction of homicides that are cleared by arrest. Using data covering homicides in approximately 50 of the largest US cities from 2007 to 2017, I find no evidence that greater police funding resulted in higher homicide clearance rates. This finding is robust to linear regression and instrumental variable approaches, different ways to measure police budgets, and across victims of different races and in different types of neighborhoods. In summary, the way large city police departments have historically spent their funds, more funding has not helped catch more murderers.
News coverage and mass shootings in the US
Michael Jetter & Jay Walker
European Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study the potential effect of mass-shooting-related television news in the US on subsequent mass shootings from 2006–2017. To circumvent endogeneity, our identification strategy relies on unpredictable disasters in countries home to substantial numbers of US emigrants crowding out shooting news. Instrumental variable and reduced form regressions consistently suggest a positive and statistically significant effect. This result remains consistent throughout a battery of robustness checks. In terms of magnitude, a one standard deviation increase in shooting news raises mass shootings by approximately 73% of a standard deviation. We then explore potential mechanisms, broadly delineating the ideation of murder, fame seeking, and behavioral contagion. The number of murders in general remains orthogonal to shooting news, and mass shootings are not more likely on days with predictable news pressure (e.g., during the Olympics or the Super Bowl). However, mass shootings are more likely after anniversaries of the most deadly historical mass shootings. Taken together, these results lend support to a behavioral contagion mechanism following the public salience of mass shootings.
The Politics of Police Data: State Legislative Capacity and the Transparency of State and Substate Agencies
Soctt Cook & David Fortunato
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Police, like other bureaucratic agencies, are responsible for collecting and disseminating policy-relevant data. Nonetheless, critical data, including killings by police, often go unreported. We argue that this is due in part to the limited oversight capacity of legislative bodies to whom police are accountable. Although many local assemblies lack the means for effective oversight, well-resourced state legislatures may induce transparency from state and substate agencies. This argument is evaluated in two studies of police transparency in the United States. First, we examine the compliance of 19,095 state, county, and municipal police agencies with official data requests over five decades, finding strong positive effects of state legislative capacity on transparency. Second, we examine the accuracy of transmitted data on killings by police, finding that lethality is systematically underreported in states with lower-capacity legislatures. Collectively, our study has implications for research on policing, legislatures, agency control, and analyses of government data.
Medical cannabis and automobile accidents: Evidence from auto insurance
Cameron Ellis et al.
Health Economics, September 2022, Pages 1878-1897
Abstract:
While many states have legalized medical cannabis, many unintended consequences remain under-studied. We focus on one potential detriment – the effect of cannabis legalization on automobile safety. We examine this relationship through auto insurance premiums. Employing a modern difference-in-differences framework and zip code-level premium data from 2014 to 2019, we find that premiums declined, on average, by $22 per year following medical cannabis legalization. The effect is more substantial in areas near a dispensary and in areas with a higher prevalence of drunk driving before legalization. We estimate that existing legalization has reduced health expenditures related to auto accidents by almost $820 million per year with the potential for a further $350 million reduction if legalized nationally.
The Bounty of Buffers: Spatial Measurement of Displacement and Diffusion of Benefits of Alarms on Burglary
Seungmug (Zech) Lee & Robert McCrie
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study analyzes the extent to which alarm systems impact geographical displacement and/or diffusion of benefits on burglary, which regards as a substitute for the absence of capable guardians. A quasi-experimental design with three nested concentric zones—target, buffer, and control—are utilized by incorporating the WDQ conceptual approach with GIS and a parcel map. The datasets include burglary incidents and alarm permit records. Alarms produce a sizeable impact on burglary reduction. No indication of spatial displacement is observed from protected houses to nearby houses. Alarms create a short geographic ambit and a wider spatial range of diffusion of benefits. A burglar alarm can protect the house without displacing burglary to nearby houses and provides neighboring houses with protection as well.
Malleability of Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from Migrants
Marit Hinnosaar & Elaine Liu
Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
How malleable is alcohol consumption? Specifically, how much is alcohol consumption driven by the current environment versus individual characteristics? To answer this question, we analyze changes in alcohol purchases when consumers move from one state to another in the United States. We find that if a household moves to a state with a higher (lower) average alcohol purchases than the origin state, the household is likely to increase (decrease) its alcohol purchases right after the move. The current environment explains about two-thirds of the differences in alcohol purchases. The adjustment takes place both on the extensive and intensive margins.
Association Between Community‐Level Violent Crime and Cardiovascular Mortality in Chicago: A Longitudinal Analysis
Lauren Eberly et al.
Journal of the American Heart Association, 19 July 2022
Abstract:
Chicago is composed of 77 community areas. Age‐adjusted mortality rates by community area for cardiovascular disease, stroke, and coronary artery disease from 2000 to 2014, aggregated at 5‐year intervals, were obtained from the Illinois Department of Public Health Division of Vital Records. Mean total and violent crime rates by community area were obtained from the City of Chicago Police Data Portal. Using a 2‐way fixed effects estimator, we assessed the association between longitudinal changes in violent crime and cardiovascular mortality rates after accounting for changes in demographic and economic variables and secular time trends at the community area level from 2000 to 2014. Between 2000 and 2014, the median violent crime rate in Chicago decreased from 3620 per 100 000 (interquartile range [IQR], 2256, 7777) in the 2000 to 2004 period to 2390 (IQR 1507, 5745) in the 2010 to 2014 period (P=0.005 for trend). In the fixed effects model a 1% decrease in community area violent crime rate was associated with a 0.21% (95% CI, 0.09–0.33) decrease in cardiovascular mortality rates (P=<0.001) and a 0.19% (95% CI, 0.04–0.33) decrease in coronary artery disease mortality rates (P=0.01). There was no statistically significant association between change in violent crime and stroke mortality rates (−0.17% [95% CI, −0.42 to 0.08; P=0.18]).
The Effects of Youth Employment on Crime: Evidence from New York City Lotteries
Judd Kessler et al.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Summer 2022, Pages 710-730
Abstract:
Recent policy discussions have proposed government-guaranteed jobs, including for youth. One key potential benefit of youth employment is a reduction in criminal justice contact. Prior work on summer youth employment programs has documented little-to-no effect of the program on crime during the program but has found decreases in violent and other serious crimes among “at-risk” youth in the year or two after the program. We add to this picture by studying randomized lotteries for access to the New York City Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), the largest such program in the United States. We link SYEP data to New York State criminal records data to investigate outcomes of 163,447 youth who participated in a SYEP lottery between 2005 and 2008. We find evidence that SYEP participation decreases arrests and convictions during the program summer, effects that are driven by the small fraction (3 percent) of SYEP youth who are at-risk, as defined by having been arrested before the start of the program. We conclude that an important benefit of SYEPs is the contemporaneous effect during the program summer and that the effect is concentrated among individuals with prior contact with the criminal justice system.
Main Street Business Initiatives and Crime in Small Towns
Josiah Johnson & Rhet Smith
University of Arkansas Working Paper, June 2022
Abstract:
Small businesses are vital to the municipalities they serve. Significant government resources and geographically-targeted economic policies are allocated toward enhancing their presence and impact on the community. In this paper, we exploit a television show contest among small towns for a $500,000 revitalization award to study the impact of place-based economic policies and business initiatives on crime. We use a difference-in-differences approach and synthetic control techniques and find significant declines in property crimes for two of the three winning towns examined. The reduction in crime grows larger after the initial year of investment indicating the effect is not driven by the contemporaneous exposure to the television show production process. We also provide suggestive first-stage evidence of economic improvements following the investment relative to the non-winning semi-finalist towns that comprise our control group. Our results shed light on the positive spillover effects of place-based initiatives and the effectiveness of these investments as a crime reduction strategy in small towns. We estimate a savings from fewer crimes of between $80,000 to $100,000 annually following the year the investment occurs.