The Economics of the Criminal Behavior of Young Adults

A bstract This study uses a combination of individual-level and county-level data to estimate an economic model of crime for young adults similar to that used by Becker (1968) and Trumbull (1989). In order to estimate a model of crime in which both individual-level and county-level data are used, it is necessary to take account of the bias introduced by using aggregate-level data in conjunction with individual-level data. In order to eliminate this bias, a technique derived by Moulton (1990) is employed. Results from a logit regression model indicate that race, sex. and peer pressure have statistically significant effects on the probability that a young adult will commit a crime. Results also suggest that police presence, as measured by county-level per capita police expenditures, does not deter young adults from committing crimes.     

The Theory of Optimal Law Enforcement

The economic literature on optimal law enforcement is very recent. Becker's seminal paper on crime and law enforcement dates from 1968 and most papers which are the focus of this survey have been published in the last ten years.The core result presented by Becker is the following: the probability and the severity of punishment deter crime. Therefore, the fine should be maximal since it is a costless transfer whereas the probability of detection and conviction is costly. Much of the recent work has attempted to show why Becker's result may not hold.     

Entrepreneurs and the Process of Obtaining Resources

This paper examines the process of how entrepreneurs assemble resources. In the model, the entrepreneur's challenge is to convince two complementary resource providers to commit their resources to a new venture. Before committing their resources, one of them needs to perform a costly evaluation. The entrepreneur has a problem with getting sufficient attention, because each provider has an incentive to wait and free-ride on the other's evaluation. For some parameters the entrepreneur solicits both partners with equal intensity ("knocking on every door"); for others, the entrepreneur always solicits the same partner ("pestering"). For many but not all parameter ranges, the process of assembling resources takes too much time relative to what is socially efficient. The model thus explores what factors facilitate or hinder the creation of new firms.     

Constructing and using a multiplicative model of the impact of societal changes on violent crime

This study aims at exploring the possibilities of using a multiplicative model when explaining the impact of societal changes on violent crime in Swedish municipalities. A theory of criminality in municipalities is presented which is founded on an analysis of individual decision-making on the commission of crimes. According to this theory, the level of criminality in a given municipality is determined by two average properties for the individuals who stay there — the average amount of occasions when the circumstances are favorable to the commission of crimes and the average probability of committing a crime on such an occasion. On the basis of the theory, a model of the relationship between criminality and specified characteristics of the municipality has been constructed. Criminality is assumed to be the product of a range of factors, each of which is a linear function of current and earlier values of a municipality characteristic. Using this model, the relationship between changes in the level of criminality and variables measuring independent characteristics at different points in time has been empirically analyzed. The data used are of register type and refer primarily to the years 1970, 1975, and 1980. Model parameters are estimated by a least-square fit. It is found that the multiplicative model explains much more of the variance in changes in the level of criminality than does the linear model including the same municipality characteristics. In the multiplicative model. independent variables obtain weights that give a different picture of the causal processes that affect criminality as compared with the linear model.     

Appropriate roles for statistical decision theory and hypothesis testing in model selection: An exposition

Statistical studies in the social sciences often analyze a cross section of communities that are assumed to be homogeneous for certain characteristics. However, the researcher might be interested in investigating the general behavior of all communities as well as particular differences between groups of communities that are spatially separated. This paper suggests, and empirically examines, a procedure which utilizes both statistical decision theory and hypothesis testing and enables us to determine the best model for estimating behavioral relationships for the full sample and for subgroups. The paper examines property crime occurrences in 94 New Jersey suburban communities of Philadelphia utilizing the full sample as well as subgroups within it. The purpose of grouping is to further understand the possible interjurisdictional mobility of urban criminals. The study suggests possible factors that induce urban criminals to commit crimes in the suburbs.     

Crime in urban areas: New evidence and results

Crime supply functions are reestimated in this paper using data corrected for victim underreporting. It is found in both a mean-variance specification and a conventional crime supply function, which includes measures of the offender's gains and losses involved in property crimes, that certainty and severity of punishment still deter. When correction for underreporting is made, the effects on the rates of robbery, burglary, larceny, and auto theft of increases in prison admission rates and prison sentence lengths remain negative. This seeming support for the “deterrence hypothesis” must be balanced against the strong evidence that improved legitimate opportunities have a negative effect on crime. Use of improved crime data and a more intuitive economic specification of the offense supply function leads to the conclusion that higher income is a better deterrent to some crimes than increased punishment.     

Discrete-time behavioral portfolio selection under cumulative prospect theory

We formulate and study three multi-period behavioral portfolio selection models under cumulative prospect theory: (i) S-shaped utility maximization without probability weighting in a market with one risky asset; (ii) S-shaped utility maximization without probability weighting in a market with multiple risky assets which follow a joint elliptical distribution; and (iii) S-shaped utility maximization with inverse-S-shaped probability weighting in a market with one risky asset. For the first two time consistent models, we identify the well-posedness conditions and derive the semi-analytical optimal policies. For the third time inconsistent model, we assume that the investor is aware of the time inconsistency but is unable to commit to his initial plan of action. Then, we reformulate the model into an intrapersonal game model and derive the semi-analytical subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (time consistent) policy under well-posedness condition. All the three policies take a piecewise linear feedback form. Our analysis of the three models not only partially explains the well documented phenomena of non-participation puzzle and horizon effect, but also extends the two fund separation theorem into multi-period S-shaped utility setting and pushes forward the study on time inconsistency issue incurred by probability weighting.     

Theories of punishment and empirical trends in corporate criminal sanctions

Economists who have studied crime and punishment have long advocated imposing an ‘optimal penalty’ equal to harm divided by the probability of detection. Recent theoretical advances have augmented this theory in the context of corporate crime, by examining the role of individuals within an organization convicted of crime. This revised theory takes into account the principal-agent relationship inherent in the employer-employee contract. This paper reviews optimal penalty theory as it applies to corporate crime, and derives its testable implications. These empirical implications are then tested against a sample of organizations convicted of federal crimes in the USA. It is shown that current prosecutorial and sentencing practice is consistent with optimal penalty theory to the extent that it calls for (1) increased sanctions with increased harm, and (2) increased individual liability when the organization cannot afford to compensate for the harm imposed. Several other empirical issues are examined, including the penalty for going to trial and the ‘deep pocket’ effect.     

Turning from crime: A dynamic perspective

This paper examines criminal choice using a variant of the human capital model. The innovation of our approach is that it attempts to disaggregate individual capital, not unlike production-based studies which disaggregate physical capital into equipment and structures. We disaggregate an individual’s capital stock into the standard human capital component as well as a utility generating component that we call social capital. In our set-up, social capital is used to account for the influence of social norms on the decision to participate in crime. This is done by modeling the stigma of arrest as a reduction in the individual’s social capital stock. We also allow individuals to account for the impact of their criminal actions on their probability of arrest. In order to estimate the structural parameters underlying the model, we make use of computationally intensive methods involving simulated generalized method of moments and value function approximation. The empirical results, based on panel data from the Delinquency in a Birth Cohort II Study, support the social capital model of crime and reveal significant state dependence in the decision to participate in crime.     

state Lotteries and Crime

A bstract . The impact of having a state lottery on the rate of crime against property in that state is estimated. Arguments in the standard economic model of criminal activity employed here include the unemployment rate, real income per capita, presence of the death penalty in the state as a proxy for general severity of punishment , police officers per capita, the percentage of population between the ages of 5 and 24, and the presence of a state lottery. Because the decision of a state to operate a lottery may correlate with crime rates, a selectivity model was run to extract any bias, but no such bias was found. The analysis used data for the 50 states plus the District of Columbia from 1970 through 1984. The results suggest that presence of a state lottery is associated with a crime rate higher by about 3 percent, an effect both statistically significant and practically important.     

Understanding the determinants of crime

In this paper, we use an overlapping generations model where individuals are allowed to engage in both legitimate market activities and criminal behavior in order to assess the role of certain factors on the property crime rate. In particular, we investigate if differences in the unemployment rate, fraction of low human capital individuals in an economy, apprehension probability, duration of a jail sentence, and income inequality could be capable of generating large differences in crime rates that are observed across countries. We find that small differences in the apprehension probability and income inequality can generate quantitatively significant differences in the crime rates across similar environments.     

An analytic approach to the study of gun control policies

This paper explores the theoretic and policy implications of the assumption that the objective of gun ownership is to enhance the security of gun owners and their associates. Security is defined as the probability of not being victimized in a criminal assault and not suffering accidental injury or death in a gun-related incident. An elementary mathematical model is constructed and analyzed. This model and controversial data currently available lead to the conclusion that the percentage of the population owning guns should be larger than now it is. This result does not imply that gun ownership should be made more accessible. Gun ownership may be one possible way to reduce crime. Other ways to achieve this objective are better police control, education, socio-economic justice, etc. The possibility that these alternatives are more effective crime deterrents is not explored in this paper, nor in the studies that provided the data. This evaluation is needed before deciding whether increased gun ownership is the policy that should be adopted in order to reduce crime.     

The market for street crime: An economic analysis of victim-offender interaction

This paper views the economic explanation of crime rates from a new perspective by explicitly deriving an economic model of the behavior of potential victims and considering the interaction of the behavior of potential victims with the behavior of offenders. Crime is produced through offenders supplying time in search of victims and victims demanding to expose themselves to the environment. A model is set up in which the crime rate, the probability of being a victim per unit of exposure time, and the probability of finding a victim per unit of offenders' search time are simultaneously determined. The model leads us to distinguish the “real” crime rate (the probability of being a victim per unit of exposure time) from the “nominal” crime rate (the number of crimes per capita). The nominal crime rate can be inversely related to the real crime rate.     

The Distribution of Criminal Offenses in an Urban Environment: A Spatial Analysis of Criminal Spillovers and of Juvenile Offenders

A bstract . In order to derive a basis for an optimal allocation of police manpower among contiguous communities criminal spillovers among these communities must be explicitly taken into account. Under the assumptions established in the economic theory of choice a criminal spillovers model is derived. The hypothesized variables within this model which serve as motivating factors for criminal spillovers are economic gain and competitive criminal pressures. Those factors which deter criminal spillovers are costs of committing offenses and the relative risks in committing crimes in distant communities. The model is then tested using data on juvenile offenders supplied by the City of Los Angeles , for the crimes of robbery, burglary and larceny. The results suggest that on an aggregate basis juvenile criminal behavior is not purely opportunistic and that certain control and motivating factors are significant in the juvenile's judgments for the spatial selection of offense targets.     

After the economic crisis of 2008: Economic conditions and crime in the last decade for the case of Spain

The economic approach to crime confirms that the deterioration of economic conditions influences the motivation of potential offenders to commit a crime or not. The relationship between crime and the economy status received considerable attention among the international literature. However, in Spain, there are just few studies that analyse this connection, and those that analyse the influence of the deterioration of the economy on crime after the crisis that began in 2008 are practically non-existent. In order to fill this gap, this research applies the difference-GMM estimator for a sample of 47 provinces during the 2010–2018 period and controls the influence of different economic, demographic and dissuasive factors on the crime rate. The results obtained are similar to those of different investigations, since in the face of worsening economic conditions, no evidence of a positive and uniform effect on the crime rate is detected, especially when it differs according to different types of crimes possible. However, that relationship does exist and is robust in property crimes. Another common result in the empirical literature is also confirmed: adolescent male cohorts present the highest crime rates.     

论间接处罚

司法实践中存在的间接处罚现象,加重了对犯罪者的处罚。这种与罪刑法定原则、罪责刑相适应原则相违背的现象,使刑法介入国民生活的各个方面,侵犯国民的人权。     

Economic Crime as Hiding Behavior

The article introduces "hiding behavior" as a concept for understanding why people conceal economic problems and solve them by committing crimes. This concept's theoretical purport, empirical applicability, and relevance for the research area are considered through an analysis of an empirical case. An explanatory model is then developed, focusing on the concrete social relations in which hiding behavior originates and in which it remains embedded. From case studies we see how hiding behavior is situated in social relations characterized by a specific form of uncertainty arising from engulfment and isolation. In these relations money plays a central role, providing a medium for action-coordination essential in the incidence of economic crime. Finally, the explanatory power of the proposed conceptual model is discussed, with several possible refinements suggested for it.     

On the effect of obesity on employment in the presence of observed and unobserved confounding

The aim of this paper was to estimate the effect of obesity on the employment probability for Italian men and women accounting for both observed and unobserved confounding. We use microdata collected by the Italian National Statistical Office for the year 2009 during a multi‐scope survey of Italian households. The employment–obesity relationship is estimated after controlling for observed confounding by using probit regression and a propensity score weighting approach. To control for both observed and unobserved confounding (endogeneity), a semiparametric recursive bivariate probit model is employed instead. Our findings suggest that obesity has a significant negative effect on the employment probability and that endogeneity might not be an important issue.     

Loyalty Rewards Facilitate Tacit Collusion

Using a dynamic overlapping‐generations model, we show that loyalty rewards robustly facilitate tacit collusion. We compare the sustainability of tacit collusion when uniform prices are used, when loyal customers are rewarded without using commitment, and when loyalty rewards are implemented by committing to offering customers either lower fixed repeat‐purchase prices or fixed repeat‐purchase discounts. We find that, relative to uniform prices, rewarding loyalty without using commitment on the equilibrium path makes tacit collusion easier to sustain, because a deviating firm is unable to steal one period of industry profit before losing all future profits. When loyalty rewards are offered by firms committing to repeat‐purchase prices, collusion is even easier to sustain, because a deviating firm cannot renege on its discounted price for repeat‐purchase customers. When firms commit to repeat‐purchase discounts, they also commit to lowering the price for their repeat‐purchase customers if they undercut the regular price, rendering tacit collusion to be even more readily sustainable. Our results hold whether products are homogeneous or horizontally differentiated as in a Hotelling model.     

青少年犯罪的物质与心理原因——基于阿德勒“自卑”与“补偿”的视角

青少年犯罪已成为困扰当今世界各国的一个严重社会问题,团伙犯罪是其突出特点。从心理学家阿德勒"自卑感"与"补偿"理论出发,拓展出对青少年团伙犯罪研究的新视角,同时对冀东地区团伙犯罪青少年进行了抽样调查,将理论探讨与实证研究相结合,分析了青少年团伙犯罪的心理原因,即自卑感的来源和过度补偿的表现方式,并引申出对于预防青少年犯罪的两点建议。