Does crime deter South Africans from self-employment?

The very high crime rate in South African cities is often argued to be the main reason for the country's small share of business ownership and self-employment. This paper revisits this hypothesis. We estimate the effect of crime on business ownership and performance using a matched dataset of census, survey and police data. In contrast to previous studies, which take into account perceived rather than actual crime and often focus on specific geographic areas, we do not find robust evidence that high crime rates have a negative impact on business ownership. Even though our estimate of the effect of crime is statistically significant and negative, it is economically small. Further, we find no evidence for a negative effect of actual crime on sales, profits and investment of informal businesses. This may imply that the low share of business ownership and self-employment in South Africa must have other reasons. These results may also suggest that crime may not be in general a serious threat for small businesses in low and middle-income countries, however, this needs further empirical research.     

Does local social capital deter labour migration? Evidence from rural China

This article empirically investigates the effect of local social capital on job-related migration in rural China. A household’s social ties in the region of origin, which we refer to as local social capital, may deter migration, because local social capital is location specific and an individual cannot benefit from it if s/he migrates. In view of Chinese gift-giving culture, we use household expenses on wedding gifts for family members outside household, relatives and friends as a proxy for local social networks. Based on the data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that in rural China local social networks have a significantly negative effect on migration. The IV results suggest that a 10% increase in wedding gifts expenses results in roughly a 1.1 percentage points decrease in migration probability.     

Does education affect risk aversion? Evidence from the British education reform

Individual risk attitudes are frequently used to predict decisions regarding education. However, using risk attitudes as a control variable for decisions about education has been criticized because of the potential for reverse causality. Causality between risk aversion and education is unclear, and disentangling the different directions it may run is difficult. In this study, we make the first attempt to investigate the causal effects of education on risk aversion by examining the British education reform of 1972, which increased the duration of compulsory schooling from age 15 to age 16. Using regression discontinuity design, we find that this additional year of schooling increases the level of risk aversion, which is contrary to previous findings in the literature, and we also find that this result is particularly strong for individuals with less education. This positive causal effect of education on risk aversion might alleviate concerns regarding the endogeneity/reverse causality issue when using risk aversion as an explanatory variable for decisions about education; the sign would remain credible because the coefficients are underestimated.     

Does the presence of professional football cause crime in a city? Evidence from Pontiac,Michigan

Using daily panel data from Detroit, we empirically explore the relationship between the National Football League (NFL) and crime in a city. We exploit the natural experiment of the Detroit Lions’ move from Pontiac, Michigan, to downtown Detroit in 2002. Pontiac is used as the treatment city and non-game day crime, other suburban cities, and other cities outside Detroit MSA are used as the comparison groups. Employing a difference-in-difference approach, we find decreases in assaults and vandalism on home game days in Pontiac relative to the control cities after the Lions’ move. We find weak evidence of a net decrease in larceny and vandalism in Pontiac on home game days following the loss of professional football. No changes in assaults and auto theft are reported. While not conclusive, our results suggest that professional football leads to additional larceny and vandalism incidents but no effects on assaults and auto theft.     

Does an intra-household flypaper effect exist? Evidence from the educational fee reduction reform in rural China

We test for evidence of an intra-household flypaper effect by evaluating the impact of an educational fee reduction reform in rural China on different categories of household expenditure, including spending on individual children. Using pre- and post-reform data, this study exploits cohort comparisons, variation in the extent of school fee reductions across different villages, and variation in the subsidies received by children enrolled in different grades within the same family to identify the impact of the reform. The results show that educational fee reductions are matched by increased voluntary educational spending on the same children who receive the fee reductions, providing strong evidence of an intra-household flypaper effect.     

Does democratic progress deter terrorist incidents?

This paper examines the democracy-terrorism linkage that can be distinguished at different stages of democracy. We first attempt to identify the level of democracy where terrorism is peaked, and then investigate if there is a significant reduction of terror incidents as a country advances to higher levels of democracy from the peaked level of terrorism.Using data from 124 countries covering the period 1984–2017, the study finds that the terrorism-increasing effect of democratization is peaked when a country is at the very middle level of democracy. Furthermore, there is evidence that terrorism may not be deterred as a country incrementally progresses to higher levels of democracy from the peak unless the country reaches the very highest level of democracy.The study also presents evidence that terror attacks become more prevalent with a lower level of economic development, a larger population, or an increase in instability of governance. However, economic growth, urbanization, and globalization are not significantly related to terrorism.     

Does anti-bribery enforcement deter foreign investment?

This article presents the first empirical evidence that bilateral fixed capital flows fall in response to anti-bribery enforcement actions. We hand-collect data on individual enforcement actions initiated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and show that anti-bribery enforcement in a country is followed by a 40% reduction in foreign fixed capital investments made by US companies in that country.     

Does female schooling reduce fertility? Evidence from Nigeria

The literature generally points to a negative relationship between female education and fertility. Citing this pattern, policymakers have advocated educating girls and young women as a means to reduce population growth and foster sustained economic and social welfare in developing countries. This paper tests whether the relationship between fertility and education is indeed causal by investigating the introduction of universal primary education in Nigeria. Exploiting differences in program exposure by region and age, the paper presents reduced form and instrumental variables estimates of the impact of female education on fertility. The analysis suggests that increasing female education by one year reduces early fertility by 0.26 births.     

Does urbanization reduce rural poverty? Evidence from Vietnam

This paper uses data from household surveys to contribute to the urbanization-poverty nexus literature by assessing the effect of urbanization on income, expenditure, and poverty in rural households in Vietnam. We find that the urbanization process stimulates the transition from farm to non-farm activities in rural areas. More specifically, urbanization tends to reduce farm income and increase wages and non-farm income in rural households. This suggests that total income and consumption expenditure of rural households are more likely to increase with urbanization. Finally, we find also that urbanization helps decrease the expenditure poverty rate of rural households, albeit by a small magnitude.     

Does corruption hinder investment? Evidence from Russian regions

This paper investigates the relationship between corruption and fixed capital investment in the setting of a corrupt country. Using different measures of corruption – registered cases of bribe taking and incidents of experienced corruption by the population – we find a negative relationship between investment and corruption. We then address the problem of endogeneity of corruption using an instrumental variables approach: when corruption is instrumented with freedom of the press and violations of journalists' rights, we find an even bigger negative effect. Disaggregating investment by ownership-type shows that only private investment is affected by corruption, but not investment made by state-owned companies. The negative effect is larger for companies with full or partial foreign ownership. Additionally, we look at the relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment (FDI): similar to the investment in fixed capital, we find a negative relationship; however, its statistical significance varies across specifications with different data sources for FDI and different corruption measures.     

Violence against women, social learning, and deterrence

We develop a simple model of sexual and domestic violence. By assumption, the potential victim’s threat to report if she is victimized is not credible, which implies that the only sequential equilibrium involves violence. However, a realistic social learning process converges to a non-sequential equilibrium without violence from all nearby states if the expected punishment for offenders whose victims report to the police is sufficiently high. A policy to increase the sentences for sexual and domestic violence convictions could therefore substantially reduce such violence in the long run, even if it is powerless to make women’s threats to report credible.

Growth and conflict in the developing world: Neo-liberal narratives and social-economy alternatives

The last quarter of the 20th century saw an increase in violent conflicts across the globe. With connections between growth, poverty and conflict increasingly difficult to ignore, research has begun examining economic dimensions of conflict. This paper reviews and critiques this new research, much of it conducted by the World Bank. The research argues that war results from poverty, and poverty from misguided economic policies, so that reducing conflict requires redoubling efforts to promote growth via neo-liberal reforms. I criticize the conceptual underpinnings of this argument, including its overemphasis on individual incentives and its claim that social and economic injustices do not contribute to violent conflicts. Instead I argue that social economics provides valuable alternative perspectives on conflict that take seriously its social dimensions, especially problems of economic justice and the common good.     

《专利法》法定赔偿下限修改对企业创新的影响机理研究

专利侵权诉讼与企业创新活动密切相关,侵权损害赔偿以经济补偿形式通过改变企业创新回报预期影响企业创新策略选择。构建司法救济社会成本模型与企业创新成本模型,分析法定赔偿下限修改对企业创新的影响机理,并探讨《中华人民共和国专利法》（以下简称《专利法》）第四次修订中提出的三项法定赔偿下限修改方案对企业创新的影响。研究发现,大幅提升赔偿下限能够激励企业突破性创新,但其对侵权的过度威慑将增加创新活动的无谓损失,并产生司法寻租空间;而取消赔偿下限将减少企业对累积性创新的投入,弱化《专利法》的侵权威慑力度,并增加法院裁判成本。在新修订的《专利法》中,3万元赔偿下限能够对企业累积性创新活动产生激励,但亦将导致低质量专利侵权诉讼挤占司法资源。据此,提出优化法定赔偿制度效果的政策建议。     

虚拟暴力：归罪抑或入罪——增设网络暴力罪的正当性考量

我国对网络暴力侵权行为有许多民事和行政上的救济手段,也有一些刑事归口定罪的惩罚措施,但刑法的规定是零散的和片面的,对一些具有社会危害性,不科以刑罚不足以遏制或惩罚的网络暴力行为束手无策。现代社会中存在的网络暴力事件,具有严重的社会危害性,应单独入罪,增设网络暴力罪。     

The economic analysis of offender’s choice: Old and new insights

The economics of crime has followed the basic Becker model (1968), according to which a criminal act results from a rational decision based on cost-benefit analysis. This paper surveys some extensions to Becker’s model, by giving some emphasis to earlier work that tries to explain differences in offender’s choice across places. At the end, the paper analyses the contribution of Steven Levitt (the new Gary Becker), which has stimulated an empirical renaissance in the economic analysis of crime. His new book (co-author Dubner) Freakonomics (2005) offers a new argument in understanding why crime fell in the 1990s in the USA. I am very grateful to an anonymous referee for his valuable comments, which improved the final version of this paper. I would also like to thank Steven Levitt for sending me his unpublished work. The usual disclaimer applies.