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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Kirchmaier, Thomas; Langella, Monica; Manning, Alan |
| Abstract: | People care about crime, with the spatial distribution of both actual and perceived crime affecting the amenities from living in different areas and residential decisions. The literature finds that crime tends to happen close to the offender’s residence but does not clearly establish whether this is because the location of likely offenders and crime opportunities are close to each other or whether there is a high commuting cost for criminals. We use a rich administrative dataset from one of the biggest UK police forces to disentangle these two hypotheses, providing an estimate of the cost of distance and how local socio-economic characteristics affect both crimes that are committed and the offenders’ location. We find that the cost of distance is very high and has a great deterrence effect. We also propose a procedure for controlling for the selection bias induced by the fact that offenders’ location is only known when they are caught. |
| Keywords: | crime; commuting |
| JEL: | K42 |
| Date: | 2021–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114412&r= |
| By: | Barron, Kai; Parry, Charles D. H.; Bradshaw, Debbie; Dorrington, Rob; Groenewald, Pam; Laubscher, Ria; Matzopoulos, Richard |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact of a sudden and unexpected nation-wide alcohol sales ban in South Africa. We find that this policy causally reduced injury-induced mortality in the country by at least 14% during the five weeks of the ban. We argue that this estimate constitutes a lower bound on the true impact of alcohol on injury-induced mortality. We also document a sharp drop in violent crimes, indicating a tight link between alcohol and aggressive behavior in society. Our results underscore the severe harm that alcohol can cause and point towards a role for policy measures that target the heaviest drinkers in society. |
| Keywords: | alcohol,mortality,economics,health,crime,South Africa,COVID-19,violence |
| JEL: | I18 I12 K42 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2022301&r= |
| By: | Manasi Deshpande; Michael G. Mueller-Smith |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. To estimate this effect, we use a regression discontinuity design in the likelihood of being reviewed for SSI eligibility at age 18 created by the 1996 welfare reform law. We evaluate this natural experiment with Social Security Administration data linked to records from the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System. We find that SSI removal increases the number of criminal charges by a statistically significant 20% over the next two decades. The increase in charges is concentrated in offenses for which income generation is a primary motivation (60% increase), especially theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and prostitution. The effect of SSI removal on criminal justice involvement persists more than two decades later, even as the effect of removal on contemporaneous SSI receipt diminishes. In response to SSI removal, youth are twice as likely to be charged with an illicit income-generating offense than they are to maintain steady employment at $15,000/year in the labor market. As a result of these charges, the annual likelihood of incarceration increases by a statistically significant 60% in the two decades following SSI removal. The costs to taxpayers of enforcement and incarceration from SSI removal are so high that they nearly eliminate the savings to taxpayers from reduced SSI benefits. |
| JEL: | I38 J14 K42 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29800&r= |
| By: | Doleac, Jennifer (Texas A&M University); Eckhouse, Laurel (Metropolitan State University of Denver); Foster-Moore, Eric (Metropolitan State University of Denver); Harris, Allison (Yale University); Walker, Hannah (University of Texas at Austin); White, Ariel (MIT) |
| Abstract: | Millions of people in the US are eligible to vote despite past criminal convictions, but their voter participation rates are extraordinarily low. In this study, we report the results of a series of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mail-based interventions aimed at encouraging people with criminal records to register to vote in North Carolina. We use a novel approach to identify and contact this population, using a combination of administrative data and data from a commercial vendor. In our main experiment, conducted in the fall of 2020, we find that, on average, our mailers increased voter registration by 0.8 percentage points (12%), and voter turnout in the general election by 0.5 percentage points (11%). By contrast, our treatment has no effect on a comparison group of people without criminal records who live in the same neighborhoods. We find suggestive evidence that treatment effects vary across demographic groups and with the content of mailers. For instance, effects were smaller for Black recipients, and smaller when extra "civil rights framing"cwas added to the mailer text. Overall, we demonstrate that it is possible to identify, contact, and mobilize a marginalized group that is not effectively targeted by existing outreach efforts. Our results speak to how organizations can increase voter registration and turnout among people with criminal records, without necessarily changing laws to broaden eligibility. |
| Keywords: | criminal justice reform, civic engagement, voting, crime |
| JEL: | K42 K16 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15121&r= |
| By: | Bouckaert, Jan (University of Antwerp); Stennek, Johan (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | We study how the legal profession manages representational conflicts of interest. Such conflicts arise when the same law firm represents clients with adverse interests. They may compromise the legal process, ultimately jeopardizing social welfare. We argue that current ethical standards, emphasizing disqualification over Chinese walls, may actually worsen the clients’ situation. Instead, the clients’ interests are today mainly protected by law firms being small. Despite low market concentration, law firms enjoy high earnings as representational conflicts create negative network externalities at the firm level. These profits are not eroded even in the long run as entry occurs through firm splitups. |
| Keywords: | law firms; professional services; dual representation; representational conflicts of interest; ethical standards; Chinese walls; recusals; negative network externalities; competition; self-regulation |
| JEL: | K40 L13 L22 L44 L84 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0820&r= |
| By: | Petros Sekeris (Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School); Tanguy van Ypersele (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In this article we propose a theoretical model to better comprehend the effect of gun laws on violent property crime. We assume that a violent encounter between a criminal and a victim is costly to both, and we uncover two types of equilibria: a pure strategy violent equilibrium and a mixed strategy equilibrium where the criminal is deterred with strictly positive probability. The effect of a relaxation of gun laws is shown to be conditional on both initial gun laws and on the relative improvement of the victims' defense capacity relative to the criminals' offense capacity. We uncover a potentially inverted U-shaped relationship between gun laws leniency and investments in violent activities which helps reconciling seemingly contradictory empirical findings. |
| Abstract: | Dans cet article nous développons un modèle théorique permettant de mieux comprendre l'effet des lois sur le contrôle des armes à feu sur les crimes violents liés à l'appropriation de propriété privée. Nous supposons qu'une rencontre violente est coûteuse aussi bien pour un criminel que pour sa victime et nous identifions deux types d'équilibres : un équilibre violent en stratégie pure et un équilibre en stratégie mixte dans le cadre duquel le criminel est dissuadé avec une probabilité strictement positive. L'effet d'un assouplissement de la législation sur les armes à feu dépend du niveau des restrictions légales initiales en la matière, ainsi que du gain d'efficacité relatif de la victime et du criminel. Nous mettons au jour une possible relation en U-inversé entre la souplesse des lois sur les armes à feu et les investissements en activités violentes, ce qui permet de réconcilier des résultats empiriques antérieurs contradictoires. |
| Keywords: | crime,gun laws,deterrence,contrôle des armes à feu,dissuasion |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03607608&r= |
| By: | Balisacan, Arsenio |
| Abstract: | Competition law—also known as antitrust in some jurisdictions—has become part of governments’ policy arsenal to achieve efficient and welfare-improving market outcomes. From only a handful of economies in North America and Europe, the adoption of competition law and policy has spread rapidly to Asian economies since 1990. Like their Western counterparts several decades earlier, most Asian jurisdictions have exempted agriculture, albeit in varying degrees, from the prohibitions of competition law, such as those involving the exercise of market power by farmers’ associations. Public choice considerations suggest that the exemption serves as a countervailing force for the farmers’ comparatively weak position in the balance of political influence for agricultural policy and in bargaining power over the more concentrated wholesale-retail segments of the agri-food value chain. Farm heterogeneity and farm-operation consolidation, induced in part by the economy’s structural transformation, weaken the case for broad exemption. |
| Keywords: | Competition policy, competition law, antitrust, political economy, agricultural development, Asia |
| JEL: | K21 L40 O13 O53 |
| Date: | 2022–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112650&r= |
| By: | Guimaraes, Bernardo; Pessoa, João Paulo; Ponczek, Vladimir |
| Abstract: | We propose a model to study non-compete agreements and evaluate their quantitative effects. We explore an exogenous policy change that removed non-compete clauses in the market for Brazilian footballers, the Pele Act of 1998. The Act raised players’ lifetime income but changed the wage profile in a heterogeneous way, reducing young players’ salaries. We structurally estimate the model’s parameters by matching wages and turnover profiles in the post Act period. By changing a single parameter related to the non-compete friction, we can match the changes in the age-earnings profile. We then show that the bulk of income gains is due to distributional forces, with efficiency gains playing a minor role. |
| Keywords: | labor mobility; labor frictions; wage profile; labor turnover |
| JEL: | J30 J60 K31 |
| Date: | 2021–03–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114417&r= |
| By: | Стайков, Ивайло |
| Abstract: | The subject of analysis is the international legal regulation of the activity of the ethics committees of scientific medical research with human beings. The focus of the analysis is on The Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association on Ethical Principles in Human Clinical Trials of 1964, The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (the so-called Oviedo Convention) and The Additional Protocol of 2005 to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine on Biomedical Research. |
| Keywords: | Medical scientific research with human beings; Ethics Committees; International legal regulation; The Declaration of Helsinki; Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine |
| JEL: | I18 I19 I23 K33 |
| Date: | 2022–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112273&r= |
| By: | Maury Cruz, Luis Alberto; Cruz-Juárez, Alberto; Medel-Ramírez, Carlos |
| Abstract: | This study proposes to evaluate the degree of democratic governance of public management through the analysis of public information. For this purpose, the transparency portals of the obligated subjects are analyzed, applying a series of indicators, postulates, axioms and theorems, with which possible cases of corruption can be identified. This study answers the question: How to evaluate the degree of democratic governance of public management from the analysis of the portals of the obligation of transparency of the obligated subjects at the federal, state and municipal levels? To this end, indicators are developed to evaluate the quality of public information, levels of transparency, corruption, accountability, social participation, citizen oversight and democratic governance, to be applied in the first instance to transparency portals of the obligated subjects. These indicators, as a whole, provide the guideline for evaluating the degree of democratic governance of a given public management at the federal, state or municipal level. It should be noted that the methodology for this evaluation is multi and interdisciplinary in nature, combining philosophical, political, legal, economic and accounting aspects. |
| Keywords: | Indicator, Quality, Public information, Transparency, Corruption, Social participation, Accountability, Citizen oversight and Democratic governance. |
| JEL: | C82 H77 H83 I39 K42 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–06–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112254&r= |
| By: | Luca Colombo (Deakin University, Burwood, Australia - Deakin University [Burwood]); Paola Labrecciosa (Monash Business School); Agnieszka Rusinowska (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | The paper presents a novel approach based on di¤erential games to the study of criminal networks. We extend the static crime network game (Ballester et al., 2004, 2006) to a dynamic setting. First, we determine the relationship between the Markov Perfect Equilibrium (MPE) and the vector of Bonacich centralities. The established proportionality between the Nash equilibrium and the Bonacich centrality in the static game does not hold in general in the dynamic setting. Next, focusing on regular networks, we provide an explicit characterization of equilibrium strategies, and conduct comparative dynamic analysis with respect to the network size, network density, and implicit growth rate of total wealth in the economy. Contrary to the static game, where aggregate equilibrium increases with network size and density, in the dynamic setting, more criminals or more connected criminals can lead to a decrease in total crime, both in the short run and at the steady state. We also examine another novel issue in the network theory literature, i.e., the existence of a voracity e¤ect, occurring when an increase in the implicit growth rate of total wealth in the economy lowers economic growth. We do identify the presence of such a voracity e¤ect in our setting. |
| Keywords: | differential games,Markov Perfect Equilibrium,social networks,criminal networks,Bonacich centrality |
| Date: | 2022–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03601580&r= |
| By: | Abboud, Tatiana (University of Montreal); Bellou, Andriana (University of Montreal); Lewis, Joshua (University of Montreal) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first long-run assessment of adolescent alcohol control policies on later-life health and labor market outcomes. Our analysis exploits cross-state variation in the rollout of "Zero Tolerance" (ZT) Laws, which set strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21 and led to sharp reductions in youth binge drinking. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach that combines information on state and year of birth to identify individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence and tracks the evolving impacts into middle age. We find that ZT Laws led to significant improvements in later-life health. Individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence were substantially less likely to suffer from cognitive and physical limitations in their 40s. The health effects are mirrored by improved labor market outcomes. These patterns cannot be attributed to changes in educational attainment or marriage. Instead, we find that affected cohorts were significantly less likely to drink heavily by middle age, suggesting an important role for adolescent initiation and habit-formation in affecting long-term substance use. |
| Keywords: | Zero Tolerance laws, disability, alcohol consumption, labor market |
| JEL: | I18 I12 J20 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15114&r= |
| By: | Ms. Dora Benedek; Mr. Christophe J Waerzeggers; Martin Grote; Maksym Markevych; Grace Jackson; Ms. Lydia E Sofrona |
| Abstract: | This note explores the conditions, design elements, and implementation considerations of a successful voluntary disclosure program (VDP), including its compliance with anti–money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) international standards. The note emphasizes that such a program must be offered in the context of a considerably strengthened and credible enforcement capacity—one that is explicitly publicized to taxpayers—to avoid undermining tax morale. |
| Keywords: | Tax Evasion, Tax Policy Design, Tax Revenues, Illegal Behavior, anti–money laundering, combating the financing of terrorism, AML/CFT |
| Date: | 2022–04–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imftnm:2022/002&r= |