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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Richard Disney; Tom Kirchmaier; Stephen Machin; Carmen Villa |
| Abstract: | Novel spatial data on London street gangs between 1990 and 2015 are combined with local housing characteristics to produce a newly constructed data source that shows how social housing and its architectural design relates to gang presence and neighbourhood crime. High-rise public housing estates built in the post-World War II era are much more likely to host gangs than areas without social housing. To address concerns that social housing was built in already high-crime areas, localised high-rise construction is shown to be predicted from spatial patterns of WWII bomb damage that occurred in the 1940-41 Blitz. Bomb-induced high-rise construction significantly raises gang presence and criminality, with there being especially high juvenile crime rates in gang areas. |
| Keywords: | London gangs, public housing, bombs, knife crime |
| Date: | 2026–01–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2147 |
| By: | Martimort, David; Simons (Semenov), Aggey |
| Abstract: | We study a repeated buyer-seller relationship with persistent adverse selection and one-sided enforcement, where a prepaid seller can breach by taking the money and running. The optimal stationary contract depends on enforcement strength and the discount factor. Three regimes arise. With a strong legal system, penalties deter breach and the optimal static contract can be repeated. With a weak system, the penalty caps transfers, forcing bunching among efficient (low-cost) types. With a very weak system, compliance relies on relational rents, causing large downward distortions. Strengthening public enforcement relaxes both incentive and enforcement constraints, reducing allocative inefficiency. |
| Keywords: | Adverse selection, Limited enforcement, Relational contracts, Contract breach |
| JEL: | D82 D86 K12 O17 |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:131355 |
| By: | Ilka van de Werve (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Siem Jan Koopman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Frank Weerman (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law); Arjan Blokland (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law) |
| Abstract: | In this study, we employ a newly developed time series econometric approach to investigate the development in crime rates in various members states of the European Union (EU) between 1968 and 2019. We propose a panel data model with stochastically time-varying factors that also includes country-specific effects. This model enables us to evaluate the existence of a common EU crime trend, including a crime drop, to describe how individual countries depart from this common trend, and to estimate its association with macroeconomic and demographic explanatory variables. To have an equivocal measure of crime over the countries for the period of interest, we use homicide rates based on the Mortality Database from the World Health Organization. Results confirm the presence of a crime drop in the EU, be it stronger in Western EU countries than in Eastern EU countries. We also find that economic conditions explain a small portion of the crime trends in the EU; with macroeconomic activity (economic growth) being more relevant for Eastern EU countries, and macroeconomic performance (welfare growth) for Western EU countries. The young adult ratio (share of 25 to 34 year-olds in the total population) substantially explains the crime trend and drop in Western EU countries only. Our findings illustrate how the new model can be used to analyze the trends in crime, the fit from explanatory variables, and the differences in countries. |
| Keywords: | Crime Trends, Crime Drop, Macroeconomy, Time Series Econometrics, European Union |
| JEL: | C32 C51 J11 |
| Date: | 2025–09–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20250053 |
| By: | Constance Frohly; Roberto Galbiati; Emeric Henry; Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Moral reminders, also referred to as moral appeals or moral nudges, are widely used by governments, companies, and NGOs to promote pro-social behavior. These appeals function by either increasing the salience of moral concerns or the cost of diverting attention away from relevant information on payoffs or social norms. Drawing on over 400 studies across psychology, sociology, management and economics, we present a meta-analysis of their effects. Our findings reveal that, on average, moral reminders are effective, with an effect size (Hedge's g) of 0.24 in a random-effects model, but with significant backfiring occurring in 12% of studies. We identify sources of heterogeneity based on disciplinary focus and design choices. Crucially, we introduce a taxonomy of moral reminders: we distinguish those that provide information on consequences, those that highlight descriptive or injunctive norms, and those that prime moral awareness. Our analysis shows that all of these instruments are effective, particularly those providing information on consequences, whereas information on injunctive norms is more likely to backfire. |
| Keywords: | Meta-analysis, Behavioral ethics, Moral reminders, Pro-social behavior |
| Date: | 2026–01–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-05456784 |
| By: | Brown, Tarnell |
| Abstract: | Individuals released from jails and prisons face extremely high risks of fatal overdose and reincarceration, yet many jurisdictions continue to underprovide medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), recovery housing, and supervised consumption services. At the same time, recovery residences and diversion courts are expanding without a clear framework for institutional design. This paper develops a mechanism-design model of harm-reduction policy at the interface of criminal justice and community treatment. A public funder chooses a funding regime and certification rules, diversion judges set the stringency of supervision and treatment conditions, recovery residence providers decide whether to operate abstinence-only or MOUD-inclusive housing, and high-risk individuals choose whether to comply or relapse. The model yields a punitive equilibrium, supported by abstinence-only funding and strict conditions, and a harm-reduction equilibrium under MOUD-inclusive funding and flexible conditions. Using effect sizes from Rhode Island’s statewide corrections MOUD program, Massachusetts’ jail-based MOUD pilots, and recent recovery housing evaluations, we show that the harm-reduction equilibrium is Pareto-superior for funders, judges, providers, and high-severity residents, yet the punitive equilibrium can remain risk-dominant because of political and informational frictions. We then embed the game in a computational social choice framework: stakeholders hold multi-dimensional preferences over policy bundles—combinations of funding rules, certification standards, diversion guidelines, and overdose prevention interventions such as supervised consumption sites—and social choice is constrained by justice-based requirements that rule out policies generating avoidable lethal risk or systematic exclusion of MOUD patients from housing and treatment. The analysis characterizes which harm-reduction mechanisms are implementable as equilibrium outcomes of the institutional game while respecting these constrained social preferences, and it identifies simple instruments—MOUD-inclusive funding commitments, performance-based transparency, and structured diversion defaults—that can move jurisdictions from punitive to harm-reduction equilibria within existing legal constraints. |
| Date: | 2026–02–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wrkj3_v1 |