Money and Crime in a Cash‐In‐Advance Model

A cash‐in‐advance model, in which holding money is risky, is constructed to study the coexistence of multiple means of payment and monetary policy implications. In steady‐state equilibrium, the marginal rate of substitution of cash goods for credit goods depends on the crime rate as well as the nominal interest rate. Credit may be in use, although the return on money is not positive. With theft, a money injection reduces the crime rate and makes cash more preferable for a greater variety of goods. Inflation improves welfare. However, without theft, inflation makes credit more preferable and decreases welfare. In general, the Friedman rule is not optimal.     

基于GIS的盗窃犯罪稳定时空热点和环境要素分析

以长沙市某区为实证研究案例，运用地理信息系统（GIS）空间分析和新兴时空分析法研究盗窃犯罪在空间及时空结合的三维角度下的分异格局和环境特征。采用核密度分析法和Dbscan空间聚类分析法直观识别犯罪热点；构建时空立方体模型分析犯罪热点的时空变化特征，剔除短暂存续的“伪热点”，识别出稳定时空犯罪热点。研究表明：研究区域内盗窃犯罪在空间分布上具有显著空间分异特征及空间转移性，犯罪热点集中分布于北部区域，呈现城市中心距离衰减的特点；在时空分布上具有高度集聚性，研究区内仅2.11%的区块中聚集了62.4%的盗窃犯罪；结合稳定时空热点的空间环境特征，可将热点分为商业聚集型、棚户区型及学校周边型，建议犯罪防控应充分考虑城市建成环境中消极因素对犯罪行为的影响。这些研究可为后续犯罪空间影响因素研究奠定基础，也为犯罪的精准防控提供现实依据。     

School district consolidation: Market concentration and the scale‐efficiency tradeoff

Consolidation is often proposed as a strategy for increasing school district quality without increasing educational funding. However, if consolidation reduces competition in the local school market and reduces efficiency, any savings from exploiting economies of scale may be lost to increased inefficiency. We use a stochastic cost function to investigate these effects for districts in Texas. We find important economies of scale, but we also find that increased market concentration leads to increased cost inefficiency. Finally, we illustrate the practical importance of these two potentially offsetting factors in a simulation that considers consolidating Texas school districts to county‐level districts. We find that failure to consider the effect on competition can lead to large overestimates of the benefits of consolidation.     

Does history matter? Colonial education investments in India

Can good policy overcome or alter the effects of history? This question is addressed in this article using unique district‐level data for 148 districts of former British India. Controlling for observable differences in geography and income, the ordinary least squares estimates suggest a large and positive effect of colonial expenditures on rural primary education in 1911 on rural literacy up to 1991. However, instrumental variable estimates that control for the endogeneity of colonial investments suggest that the effects of historical spending are significant only up to 1971. Two policy changes can account for these findings: an increase in spending following the 1968 National Education Policy and a greater emphasis on the universal provision of public goods such as schools in the 1970s. Unlike recent studies documenting the persistent effects of historical investments on contemporary outcomes, this study emphasizes how effective policies can overturn the effects of history.     

An empirical examination of the effects of the U.S. dollar depreciation on the United States-Japan trade balance, with a control for auto quality diffe

This paper models the effect on the U.S. — Japan trade balance in manufactures of the shift during the 80's from a strong to a weak dollar regime, while controlling for the effects of changes in auto quality across U.S. and Japanese new passenger autos. U.S. auto imports are broken out from other manufactures, and auto prices adjusted to control for quality by means of a quasi-hedonic equation. Limited empirical evidence does suggest that using a quality-adjusted auto relative price, in place of a relative price term with no quality adjustment, increases the ability to explain variations of auto import demand. Changes in the U.S. dollar/yen rate give rise to a J-curve effect from 1985 to 1987, and a similar but more negative pattern holds when quality is not controlled for. The effect of positive U.S. auto quality change, ceteris paribus, is also investigated, and is found to have a substantial deficit reducing effect.     

Investigating causality among unemployment,income and crime in Taiwan: evidence from the bounds test approach

This paper examines the long-run and causal relationships among unemployment, income and crime in Taiwan. The results clearly indicate that there is a long-run level equilibrium relationship among unemployment, income and total crime. There are also long-run relationships among unemployment, income and theft and among unemployment, income and economic fraud. The causality test results from the ECM-VAR and level VAR models indicate that there is a neutral relationship among unemployment, income and total crime, and a neutral relationship among unemployment, income and all three categories of crime. It is concluded that there is no strong evidence in favor of the unemployment-led crime (ULC) or the crime-led unemployment (CLU) hypotheses in Taiwan.     

Cartel Organization,Price Discrimination,and Selection of Transatlantic Migrants: 1899–1911

We study the effects of trans‐Atlantic passenger shipping cartels on tourist/business and migrant traffic. Collusion had a smaller effect on first and second class service relative to third class service. Its effects were proportionately stronger eastbound, but less important in absolute numbers given smaller eastbound traffic. Collusion‐driven consumer substitution across classes was small but non‐negligible. Thus, collusion affected migrant traffic far more than tourist/business traffic. We also confirm that collusion led to higher fares across all cabin classes, especially for steerage. We construct and calibrate an analytical model and show that the pattern of observed prices and volumes are consistent with a profit‐maximizing cartel, thus buttressing the hypothesis that the collusion effects were causal. Finally, we document that collusion led to positive selection of migrants, as measured by literacy rates and financial resources.     

Determinants of Factor Misallocation in Agricultural Production and Implications for Agricultural Supply‐side Reform in China

Allocative inefficiency in agriculture is an issue puzzling researchers and policy‐makers in China. Based on household data from the China Family Panel Studies of 2012, the present paper quantifies the potential distortions in China's agricultural production and examines their underlying determinants across regions. The results reveal that there are different levels of distortions across regions. The Middle region is facing the greatest distortion. Increases in machinery input, the proportion of non‐farm income and effective labor input will reduce distortions. Household saving, farmland rent and farmland size are significantly positively related to distortions. There is a complementary effect between labor and farmland in alleviating production inefficiency, but substitution effects exist between capital and farmland and also capital and labor. The increase in farmland size will aggravate the impact of capital on distortions. Given the constraint of super small‐scale farmland, facilitating land transfer is a necessary precondition for improving allocative efficiency.     

The effect of learning varies according to locality: Micro data analysis of the lawyer market in Japan

Using individual level data, this paper examines how and to what extent the behavior and perception of those bringing lawsuits differ between large district courts (competitive lawyer market) and medium or small district ones (less competitive lawyer markets). The major findings are: (1) in medium and small, but not large districts, trial experience discourages people from employing a lawyer. (2) A natural person is less likely to employ a lawyer than a legal entity in medium and small districts, but not in large ones. (3) The self-rated cost of searching for a lawyer is lower in large districts than small ones. It follows from these results that the lower competitive pressure in the lawyer markets in medium and small districts results in higher costs to employ a lawyer than is found in large districts.     

试论旅游犯罪活动对旅游业的影响及启示

旅游犯罪活动表现为盗窃、抢劫、诈骗;伤害、杀人、强奸;以旅游的名义进行偷渡、贩毒、走私和扰乱旅游市场秩序;破坏旅游交通工具或旅游景区设施等形式。旅游犯罪活动对旅游业的影响是经济水平明显下降;旅游安全指数下跌;阻碍国家之间的文化交流;损害国际旅游形象;形成心理阴影;影响法律制度健全;扰乱旅游市场秩序等;启示表现为创建旅游基本法,完善相关制度;规范旅游市场秩序;加强旅游企业的管理;提高人们旅游安全意识;加强对旅游者理性消费的宣传和引导;加大对旅游景区、景点的管理等。     

Political Economy of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: The Rural‐Urban Dynamics in Ghana

This study examined the political economy dimension of fiscal transfers from the national government to district assemblies based on the formula distribution policy created under Ghana's 1992 Constitutional democracy. The two‐step system GMM for dynamic linear panel analysis was estimated from locational perspectives of rural and urban in relation to political swing and aligned districts. Data on annual District Assemblies Common Fund transfers and election results were used for the analyses from 1994 to 2014 covering 167 assemblies. From the results, average transfers to each district was Gh 6.28 million but it increased by 3.5 per cent in politically aligned rural districts and by 6.4 per cent in urban swing districts. During election years, the increases were even higher, precisely 5 per cent and 10 per cent for rural aligned and urban swing districts, respectively. These suggested that the government generally targets more urban swing voters than rural aligned voters. The allocation formula was influenced by political factors, as election years tended to be associated with higher transfers. The swing effects dominated the sharing mechanism. Therefore, to reduce political influence on the allocation formula, an independent body should be established to make recommendations directly to parliament. This should dampen the political influence of incumbent governments on the allocations.     

Hot Spot Policing: A Study of Place‐Based Strategies for Crime Prevention

Hot spot policing is a popular policing strategy that addresses crime by assigning limited police resources to areas where crimes are more highly concentrated. We analyze this strategy using a game theoretic approach. The main argument against focusing police resources on hot spots is that it would simply displace criminal activity from one area to another. We provide new insights on the nature of the displacement effect with useful implications for the empirical analysis of crime‐reduction effects of police reallocation. We also propose alternative place‐based policies that display attractive properties in terms of geographic spillovers of crime reduction via optimal police reallocation.     

Do Households Prefer Small School Districts? A Natural Experiment

Some education reformers have proposed breaking up large urban school districts, thereby moving to a more efficient scale, increasing school choices, and promoting school competition. This article tests whether households expect these effects and whether they value them. It considers the effect on real estate prices of the surprise breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) into 11 minidistricts in April 2000. We estimate households' reaction to this reform in a difference‐in‐differences setting that controls for any unobserved spatial effects unaffected by the announcement. We find that households valued this decentralization, with a 2–3 percentage point increase in housing values in the LAUSD area over pre‐existing trends, compared with control districts. The effect is highest in wealthier neighborhoods but otherwise homogenous within the LAUSD area. The results suggest that households believe that decentralization would make schools more effective and that they respond to signals about schools' future.     

Industrial districts and manufacturing linkages: Chicago's printing industry, 1880–19501

In this article, it is argued that the North American industrial district was a metropolitan‐centred one that drew extensively on regional resources, skills, capital, and information. The Chicago printing industry between 1880 and 1950 is used as a case study to demonstrate that industries were linked at various scales: from the factory district to the metropolis and the region. A wide range of sources (manufacturing censuses, government reports, industrial journals, bankruptcy records) is employed to establish how the intricate set of relations and transactions formed metropolitan industrial districts.     

我国汽车产业区域竞争力的测算研究

本文根据汽车行业的发展所特有的规律,建立了一套能够反映目前各省市汽车行业现实竞争力的综合指标体系,通过对规模因素和经济效益因素两方面的相关数据的分析和论证,以及我国汽车行业建立先做大再做强的发展理念,提出建立和健全我国汽车产业区域集群,来提升我国汽车行业竞争力。     

‘Crooks,thieves, and receivers’: transaction costs in nineteenth‐century industrial Birmingham1

The existence of cooperation and trust between competing economic agents is taken for granted by much of the literature on industrial districts. This article explores the structure of the Birmingham jewellery‐making district and the problems created by the opportunistic behaviour of many of its members. Archival sources show that the district was plagued by endemic dishonesty and that proximity did not generate trust and cooperation. The absence of barriers to entry into the trade created a district where social sanctions could not be used to reduce moral hazard. All these factors threatened to destroy the district during the crisis of the 1880s. The article shows how firms joined together to create the Birmingham Jewellers Association, to establish and enforce ‘rules of the game’, with the aim of reducing transaction costs.     

Hand looms,power looms,and changing production organizations: the case of the Kiryū weaving district in early twentieth‐century Japan

The Kiryū silk weaving district, located 200 kilometres north of Tokyo, has been one of the most advanced silk weaving districts since the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). In the 1870s, it was a pioneer in the export of silk products from Japan and the leading producer of traditional Japanese kimono and obi (sash belts) for domestic markets. This study finds that the developmental process of the Kiryū district from 1895 to 1930 can be divided into at least two phases, that is, one of gradual growth based on an inter‐firm division of labour using hand looms and one of dynamic development based on the factory system using power looms. Weaving manufacturers‐cum‐contractors pioneered gradual growth by sub‐contracting with rural village out‐weavers and with a number of specialized, supporting firms in Kiryū town, and grew faster than factory production systems. New joint‐stock firms played the role of genuine entrepreneurs by introducing power looms, thereby realizing significant economies of scale. During this new phase, the weaving manufacturers‐cum‐contractors survived and also introduced new production systems.     

The effects on insurance costs of restricting undocumented immigrants' access to driver licenses

Proponents of issuing driver licenses to undocumented immigrants argue that the number of uninsured motorists and car accidents would decrease, thus improving public safety and lowering costs associated with car insurance. This study gives an overview of competing cost reduction and public safety arguments and examines the issues surrounding undocumented immigrants and driver licenses. It empirically assesses the effect on the average cost of auto insurance of restricting undocumented access to legal driving documents. We use a fixed effects model for panel data to test the effects on real average insurance expenditures of restricting undocumented immigrants' access to driver licenses, while controlling for other relevant factors suggested in the literature. Our main finding is that on net such restrictions raise the average annual cost of auto insurance by an estimated $17.22 ($2009) across states that have enacted such restrictions.     

Using linear and logit functions to identify adopters and non‐adopters of farm technology: Some policy considerations for KwaZulu

Kleynhans (1983) showed that the variables population density and number of migrant workers contributed significantly to linear discriminant scores computed for Black farmers in the Amaci district of KwaZulu.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate policy recommendations for the Amaci district and to check the relevancy of these recommendations in other parts of KwaZulu.

The policy recommendations were based on Kleynhans’ discriminating variables and proposed that permanent Black urbanization was essential for rural development. The significance of these variables was checked using linear probability and logit functions. The linear and logit functions were subsequently used to classify adopters and non‐adopters of farm technology in two other districts of KwaZulu. The results suggest that policies formulated for the Amaci district may also be appropriate for other districts.