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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Draca, Mirko (CEP, London School of Economics); Machin, Stephen (University College London); Witt, Robert (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the causal impact of police on crime by looking at what happened to crime before and after the terror attacks that hit central London in July 2005. The attacks resulted in a large redeployment of police officers to central London boroughs as compared to outer London – in fact, police deployment in central London increased by over 30 percent in the six weeks following the July 7 bombings. During this time crime fell significantly in central relative to outer London. Study of the timing of the crime reductions and their magnitude, the types of crime which were more likely to be affected and a series of robustness tests looking at possible biases all make us confident that our research approach identifies a causal impact of police on crime. Implementing an instrumental variable approach shows an elasticity of crime with respect to police of approximately -0.3, so that a 10 percent increase in police activity reduces crime by around 3 percent. |
| Keywords: | crime, police, terror attacks |
| JEL: | H00 H5 K42 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3410&r=law |
| By: | Gatti, Donatella (University of Paris 13) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the impact of ownership concentration on GDP growth, for a sample of 18 OECD countries over the period 1980 to 2004. The econometric analysis shows that more concentrated ownership can speed up growth, for countries approaching the technological frontier, provided that labour market regulation is sufficiently tight. In the absence of employment regulation, the logic of financial markets discipline applies and dispersed ownership appears as more favorable for growth. Based on econometric results, impact coefficients are calculated allowing to evaluate the growth points gained/lost following a given change in ownership concentration. This exercise reveals that a reform in the domain of ownership structure can yield sizeable effects in terms of growth. Importantly, these effects are unequally distributed across countries: Anglo-Saxon countries would take more advantage of deregulation (i.e. increased dispersion of ownership in a context of deregulated labour markets) while continental European countries would benefit more from increased concentration of ownership in a context of reinforced labour regulation. |
| Keywords: | ownership concentration, labour market regulation, growth, developed countries |
| JEL: | O43 O57 G32 K31 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3415&r=law |
| By: | Maug, Ernst (Chair for Corporate Finance, University of Mannheim and Sonderforschungsbereich 504); Ackerman, Abraham |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate how the enactment and enforcement of insider trading restrictions affect the way in which information about acquisitions is released before the actual acquisition announcement. We analyze a sample with almost 19,000 acquisition announcements from 48 countries. We find that insider trading legislation strongly affects the information revealed to the market in the runup phase before the announcement whereas the impact of subsequent enforcement actions by regulators is much weaker and mostly insignificant. The impact of insider trading legislation is stronger in countries with more effective judicial systems. We conclude that market participants rationally anticipate the degree of law enforcement. |
| Date: | 2007–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:07-34&r=law |
| By: | Benno Torgler; Bin Dong |
| Abstract: | The topic of corruption has recently attracted a great deal of attention, yet there is still a lack of micro level empirical evidence regarding the determinants of corruption. Furthermore, the present literature has not investigated the effects of political interest on corruption despite the interesting potential of this link. We address these deficiencies by analyzing a cross-section of individuals, using the World Values Survey. We explore the determinants of corruption through two dependent variables (perceived corruption and the justifiability of corruption). The impact of political interest on corruption is explored through three different proxies, presenting empirical evidence at both the cross-country level and the within-country level. The results of the multivariate analysis suggest that political interest has an impact on corruption controlling for a large number of factors. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Political Interest, Social Norms |
| JEL: | K42 D72 O17 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–03–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qut:dpaper:229&r=law |