Motivation Crowding Theory

The Motivation Crowding Effect suggests that external intervention via monetary incentives or punishments may undermine, and under different identifiable conditions strengthen, intrinsic motivation. As of today, the theoretical possibility of motivation crowding has been the main subject of discussion among economists. This study demonstrates that the effect is also of empirical relevance . There exist a large number of studies, offering empirical evidence in support of the existence of crowding–out and crowding–in. The study is based on circumstantial evidence, laboratory studies by both psychologists and economists, as well as field research by econometric studies. The pieces of evidence presented refer to a wide variety of areas of the economy and society and have been collected for many different countries and periods of time. Crowding effects thus are an empirically relevant phenomenon, which can, in specific cases, even dominate the traditional relative price effect.     

On-the-job search and cyclical unemployment: Crowding out vs. vacancy effects

Incorporating on-the-job search (OTJS) into a real business cycle model has been shown to increase the cyclical volatility of unemployment. Using a particularly simple model of OTJS, we show that the increased search of employed workers during expansions induces firms to open more vacancies, but also crowds out unemployed workers in the job search, resulting in an ambiguous overall effect on unemployment volatility. We show analytically and numerically that the difference between the employer׳s share of the match surplus with an employed versus an unemployed job seeker determines the degree to which OTJS increases unemployment volatility. We use this result to re-consider some related papers of OTJS and explain the amplification of volatility they obtain. Finally, we show that a plausible calibration of the OTJS model allows us to reproduce most significant features of the US labor data.     

Socioeconomic Conditions and Property Crime:

A comprehensive review of the crime literature indicates varying and often opposing hypotheses of relationships between property crime and socioeconomic conditions such as poverty, business cycle conditions, demographics, criminal justice system actions, and family structure. Employing measures of each of the hypothesized factors, time-series models for robbery, burglary, and vehicle theft are estimated from yearly and national Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data for the period 1959 through 1992 and are used to test these hypotheses' current empirical relevance. The empirical findings selectively confirm the importance of macroeconomic stability and criminal justice system actions in reducing property crime activity. In contrast, decreases in absolute poverty and general income inequality are associated with increased criminal activity; and age demographics and family/community structure apparently have little impact on any of the analyzed property-crime trends, A reduction in inflation apparently decreases property crimes.     

基于防灾、犯罪预防及心理安全角度的国内外安全城市设计研究综述

安全问题是城市可持续发展的基础和重要前提,"安全"逐渐引起人们的重视。通过物质空间环境的规划设计提高城市公共空间安全是城市安全规划的重要内容,而物质空间环境是城市设计研究的重要对象,因此将"安全"引入城市设计尤为重要,进而形成"安全城市设计"的理念,对"安全城市设计"的概念进行了解析。灾害和犯罪是影响城市安全的两个重要因素,首先从土地利用、公共服务设施、交通网络、公共空间四个角度综述了城市设计与防灾减灾规划的结合,然后从犯罪空间分布、犯罪空间分布与空间环境结合、通过环境设计预防犯罪三个角度综述了城市设计与犯罪预防的结合。同时从心理安全的角度对城市设计的研究进行了综述,归纳总结了国内外安全城市设计研究的     

Unemployment and Property Crime: Not a Simple Relationship

A bstract . While previous studies on the unemployment-crime hypothesis have yielded equivocal results, here nonsignificant Pearson correlation coefficients were found for theft rates and the percentage of unemployed men and unemployed women for 20 nations. This raises additional cross-cultural questions about the validity both of strain theories that predict positive correlations, and competing theories that predict negative correlations. Implications for research on the unemployment-crime hypothesis are discussed.     

Crowding Out Reciprocity between Working Parents and Companies with Corporate Childcare

When the government and companies invest in childcare, both do it with good intentions. While politicians have the intention of enhancing fertility and well‐being of families, employers expect positive responses from working parents based on the norm of reciprocity. Since industrialized countries increase public family support year by year, the question arises as to whether this may trigger unanticipated consequences. If both the state and companies invest in substitutive services, they might unintentionally spark competition. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether public childcare may “crowd out” the reciprocity effects of corporate childcare on working parents. In Switzerland, state family policies vary among the 26 cantons, so we are able to compare cantons with a high and low number of cantonal childcare services. Using survey data taken from 414 working parents living in different Swiss cantons, we examined whether public childcare affects organizational‐related responses of working parents. First, our results support the expected level of reciprocity: working parents in companies with their own childcare services show higher organizational commitment than parents in companies without this support. Second, we find evidence for a crowding‐out effect: in family‐supportive cantons with numerous public childcare services, working parents’ commitment to companies with their own childcare services is lower than in less family‐friendly cantons. This finding reignites an old economic debate on the crowding out of voluntary private investments due to governmental policies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Explaining unselfish behavior: Crime and the helpful bystander

An important force combatting crime consists of the help and cooperation that citizens provide to the victims of crime and to the criminal justice system. This paper analyzes such behavior in light of economic theories of altruism. Using survey data on responses to questions about hypothetical situations involving various crimes, the analysis provides support for explanations of helping based on purely altruistic behavior, cooperative behavior based on self-interest, and behavior guided by social norms. Specifically, income, wealth, age, and race are found to be important in explaining helping behavior.     

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.     

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.     

Lethal Police Response as a Crime Deterrent:

A bstract . Since Gary Becker's article on the economics of crime and punishment , economists have explored extensively the possible deterrence effect of standard enforcement variables , not only for their public policy implications but to test the hypothesis that illegitimate behavior is sensitive to measures of risk and reward (loss) as well as social, psychological and cultural forces. Research has been needed on the probability of death to the offender caused by official police action—"lethal response." To measure the criminal reaction to intercity variations in the rate of civilian killings of police in the line of duty, a cross-sectional study of 57 cities was undertaken. Variations in non-homicide violent crime rate were found to be inversely related to variations in the intercity lethal response rate. this suggests the presence of a deterrence effect, a one Sixth of one percent decrease in the rate of non-homicide violent crime being associated with a one percent increase in the lethal response rate.     

基于拥挤效应和知识溢出下集群式供应链链间博弈分析

文章在集群式供应链的基础上引入了A-J模型,分析了两条供应链在同一区域的博弈关系.在集群式供应链的竞合过程中引入拥挤效应和知识溢出,采用逆序归纳法分析了合作博弈和非合作博弈条件下,距离对核心企业产量、创新水平和利润的影响,并总结供应链中企业决策条件和决策结果.     

Equivalence of the Core and Competitive Equilibrium in a Tiebout Economy with Crowding Types

We propose a new model of a local public goods economy with differentiated crowding. The new feature is that taste and crowding characteristics of agents are distinguished from one another. We prove that if the economy satisfies strict small group effectiveness then the core is equivalent to the set of Tiebout equilibrium outcomes. Equilibrium prices are defined to depend solely on crowding characteristics. This implies that only publicly observable information, and not private information such as preferences, is needed to induce agents to sort themselves into efficient jurisdictions. Thus, our model allows us to satisfy Bewley's[6]anonymity requirement on taxes in his well-known criticism of the Tiebout hypothesis.     

The Economics of Crime: Climbing the Decision Tree

How is it possible to study crime as an economic problem? George Brower, of the University of Connecticut, shows how the original argument of Professor Gary Becker has been tested and developed.     

The Minimum Wage Law and Teenage Crime: Evidence From the US

What is the effect of minimum wage regulation on youth crime? Masanori Hashimoto, of Ohio State University, argues that in the USA the evidence suggests that the minimum wage causes both unemployment and teenage crime.     

Inequality and Crime: Separating the Effects of Permanent and Transitory Income*

Earlier studies on income inequality and crime have typically used total income or total earnings. However, it is quite likely that it is the changes in permanent rather than in transitory income that affects crime rates. The purpose of this paper is therefore to disentangle the two effects by, first, estimating region‐specific inequality in permanent and transitory income and, second, estimating crime equations with the two separate income components as explanatory variables. The results indicate that it is important to separate the two effects; while an increase in the inequality in permanent income yields a positive and significant effect on total crimes and three different property crimes, an increase in the inequality in transitory income has no significant effect. Using a traditional, aggregate, measure of income yields insignificant effects on crime.     

Steven Levitt on Abortion and Crime: Old Economics in New Bottles

This article explores the work of Steven Levitt on abortion and crime as representative of a new wave of economists that are redefining the mainstream of the discipline. Levitt has moved away from formalized modeling of narrow self‐interested maximization that was a hallmark of the “old” mainstream. However, he retains the “old” mainstream linchpins of a focus on the individual by abstracting from the social context, and an emphasis on the ability of econometric testing to reveal the truth. These crucial elements that Levitt retains from the “old” mainstream create some problems of both emphasis and analysis for his explanation for the drop in crime in the United States.     

Crime and Racial Composition in Contiguous Communities as Negative Externalities: Prejudiced Household's Evaluation of Crime Rate and Segregation Nearby Reduces Housing Values and Tax Revenues

Abstract . How the level of amenities in surrounding communities affects the residential location decisions of households is considered. The amenities specifically taken into account are the crime and racial composition of the household's community and the contiguous communities. The theory of the household's valuation of neighborhood amenities through a housing value equation is expanded to include how the household's valuation of amenities is affected by the amenities in surrounding areas. An empirical model using data for 71 suburban communities in the Chicago Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area is specified to measure the simultaneous interaction between housing values, crime, and police effort. A revenue equation is included to determine how the household's valuation of crime and racial composition could affect the community's revenue-raising ability. The empirical results indicate that the crime and racial composition of surrounding communities as well as within the household's community have a statistically significant negative effect on housing values. While the magnitude of the effect is small, the empirical results suggest that households consider the crime rate and racial composition of surrounding communities as negative externalities.