Policing the provinces: A budgetary analysis

This article examines the impact of the Financial and Fiscal Commission's (FFC) new provincial financing dispensation on the allocation of police resources and on the deliv ery of police services at provincial level. Trends in the police budget since the late 1989s are examined, and the existing provincial allocation of police resources is analysed, as well as the relationship between crime rates, socio‐economic variables and the provincial allocation of police resources. A new framework for the provincial allocation of police resources is subsequently proposed. This framework is based on the FFC's proposed provincial grants formula and the establishment of a Crime Equalisation Fund (CEF) which allocates additional police resources based on each province's per capita crime rates and specific priority crimes. The article argues that the phased reallocation of po lice resources to provinces via this new framework will contribute to a more equitable and effective utilisation of existing police resources, which in turn should have a positive impact on the delivery of police services and the levels of crime. It also suggests that the further devolution of the police budget to provinces is likely to be inhibited by the ANC's commitment to retaining a national, centralised police service. Thus, any further devolu tion of budgetary powers with respect to policing will be determined by the outcome of centre‐province political dynamics rather than by the need to combat crime more effec tively at provincial levels.     

CRIME PREVENTION PROGRAMS: EVIDENCE FROM CHILE

This paper analyzes the impact of two anti‐crime programs adopted in Chile in the late 1990s. The first (the so‐called Quadrant Plan) is aimed at enhancing the quality of police work and the second (the Secure County Plan), at encouraging the involvement of the community in designing specific projects aimed at reducing the crime rate. It is found that only the Quadrant Plan has been successful in terms of reducing crime rates and has caused an impact through the effect of arrests in deterring crime. The Secure County program does not appear to have had any incidence on crime rates. It is also found that crime is associated with unemployment and that there is persistence in crime rates.     

A simple model of crime waves, riots, and revolutions

Standard economic models of criminal behavior analyze the criminal's decision in a partial equilibrium context. The standard model does not recognize that the probability of being punished is a function of the total amount of crime that occurs. As the total amount of crime increases, police resources become strained, courts become congested, and prisons become overcrowded. As a result, proportionately fewer criminals are apprehended, convicted, and imprisoned. The feedback effects from one criminal's decision to participate in crime to another criminal's decision can be highly significant. In one parameterization of the model developed here, the individual commits twice as many crimes for a given parameter shift than is implied by the standard model. The model also sheds light on other areas where criminal actions are interdependent such as riots, crime waves, and revolutions.     

将心理训练纳入公安院校警务实战课程教学体系探析

研究结果表明,当前警察心理健康状况不容乐观,警察心理训练势在必行.基于心理行为训练的系统性和科学性,公安院校应依托警务实战技能课程进行警察心理行为训练,使学员在增强警务实战技能的同时提高心理适应水平,以提升公安队伍的整体凝聚力和战斗力.     

资源配置、全要素生产率与农业经济增长愿景

对2004~2010年我国不同地区农业的资源配置扭曲情况的分析表明:由于"二元经济"的影响,我国农业的资本和劳动存在着明显的跨部门配置扭曲。如能有效消除此类扭曲,我国农业TFP能提高6%~36%。各地区的资源再配置效应对农业TFP增长率有着显著影响,并且各地区的资源再配置效应存在明显差异。对全国各个地区而言,土地资源再配置效应都是影响农业资源再配置效应的主要因素,资本和劳动再配置效应则相对较弱。由此可见,促进城乡资本和劳动力市场一体化以及进一步完善农村土地流转市场是现阶段降低农业资源配置扭曲、促进农业TFP增长的主要途径。     

Productivity or Endowments? Sectoral Evidence for Hong Kong's Aggregate Growth*

The present paper provides sectoral evidence that sheds new light on the current debate regarding the sources of growth of the East Asian miracle. We test both the productivity‐driven and endowment‐driven hypotheses using Hong Kong's sectoral data. The results show that most of the growth of the service sector is driven by rapidly‐accumulating capital endowments, and not by productivity growth. In addition, productivity growth in the manufacturing sector is unimpressive. The manufacturing sector is revealed to be more labor intensive than the service sector and its growth is hindered by the reallocation of resources into the service sector as a result of the growth of capital endowments and imports. Overall, sectoral evidence supports the endowment‐driven hypothesis.     

Household Property Rights Formation in Rural China: Farmers' Preference,Transaction Cost and the Efficiency Hypothesis

This paper examines the effects of farmers' preference, transaction cost and household productivity on land reallocation in rural China. Empirical results from a sample of 2102 households show that farmers' preference has no effect on land reallocation. The transaction cost has negative effects on partial‐scale land reallocation but has no effect on full‐scale land reallocation. Interestingly, highly productive and unproductive households receive more partial‐scale land reallocation than households with a median level of productivity, supporting the efficiency hypothesis (Brandt et al., 2004).     

Heterogeneous multinational firms and productivity gains from falling FDI barriers

This paper quantitatively assesses the impact of falling foreign direct investment (FDI) barriers on individual firms and its implications for intra-industry reallocation and aggregate productivity. We calibrate the firm-heterogeneity model of Eaton et al. (Econometrica 79(5):1453–1498, 2011) to match micro-level data on Japanese multinational firms facing fixed and variable costs of foreign production. We demonstrate that the calibrated model can be used to replicate the entry and sales patterns of Japanese multinationals. Counterfactual simulations show that declining FDI barriers lead to a disproportionate expansion of foreign production by more efficient firms relative to less efficient firms. A hypothetical 20 % reduction in FDI barriers is found to generate up to a 26.8 % improvement in industry-level productivity through global market-share reallocations within the industry. Compared with fixed entry barriers, reallocation effects and productivity gains are larger for a reduction of variable costs of foreign production.     

Economies of size in sugar cane production in KwaZulu‐Natal

This article examines how efficiency of resource use on sugar cane farms varies with the size of a farm business, and what implications variations in performance may hold for the reallocation of resources between size‐groups in the pursuit of land redistribution. A non‐parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) research procedure is employed to analyse farm‐size efficiency using inputs valued at opportunity cost. Results indicate that sugar cane farms producing less than 500 tons of cane exhibit substantial economies of size, and require significantly more resources to produce a rand's worth of output than farms producing more than 2 500 tons of cane. Therefore, if commercial farms are subdivided in the land resettlement programme, significant loss of efficiency may occur if the resettled farms produce less than 500 tons. Finally, results of an econometric model suggest significant links between scale efficiency and farmers’ education, managerial adeptness, training, age, and the size of farm holdings.     

Exporting and Productivity in the USA

Exporting is often touted as a way to increase economic growth.This paper examines the interaction between exporting and productivitygrowth in US manufacturing. While exporting plants have substantiallyhigher productivity levels, there is no evidence that exportingincreases plant productivity growth rates. The higher productivityof exporters largely predates their entry into exporting. However,within the same industry, exporters do grow faster than non-exportersin terms of both shipments and employment. Exporting is associatedwith the reallocation of resources from less efficient to moreefficient plants. In the aggregate, these reallocation effectsare quite large, making up over 40 per cent of total factorproductivity growth in the manufacturing sector. Half of thisreallocation to more productive plants occurs within industriesand the direction of the reallocation is towards exporting plants.     

警察当场盘查启动标准研究

盘查是公安工作中发现、确认违法犯罪的一种行之有效的手段,但因我国盘查制度在立法上存在缺陷,当场盘查启动在实践中有任意性趋势,故有必要在借鉴国外立法经验的基础上,规范我国警察当场盘查启动标准。     

Crime Watch: Hurricanes and Illegal Activities

We investigate the relationship between hurricane strikes and crime for Jamaica. To this end, we construct hurricane damages and daily recorded criminal activity. Hurricanes are found to significantly increase crime by 35%, where the impact is stronger for more damaging storms, but this only lasts for the duration of the storm. Decomposing crime into its various subtypes, one finds that while aggravated assault, break‐ins, and shooting increase during a hurricane, murders, rapes, and robberies actually decline. The greatest increase is with shootings, whereas the greatest decline is with rape. Crucially, the impact of crime depends on the existence of a storm warning. Our results also show that high frequency data more accurately estimate the impact of hurricanes on crime.     

Coping with regional inequality in Sweden: structural change,migrations, and policy, 1860–2000

In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted U‐shaped curve, growing during industrialization and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden's regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not exhibit this U‐shaped pattern. Accordingly, today's regional income inequality in Sweden is lower than in other European countries. We note that the prime mover behind the long‐run reduction in regional income differentials was structural change, whereas neoclassical and technological forces played a relatively less important role. However, this process of regional income convergence can be divided into three major periods. During the first period (1860–1940), the unrestricted action of market forces, particularly the expansion of markets and high rates of internal and international migration, led to the compression of regional income differentials. During the next period (1940–80), regional convergence was even more intense. In this period, institutional arrangements favoured the reduction of productivity differentials across industries and successive governments aided the reallocation of the workforce from declining to thriving regions and economic sectors. During the last period (1980–2000), when regional incomes diverged, internal migration and structural change slowed. Furthermore, the development of knowledge‐intensive service industries favoured economic growth in the main metropolitan areas.     

Foreign capital, unemployment and national welfare

We consider a situation where foreign capital is allowed to flow only into the export-processing zone of an economy characterized by unemployment and pursuing protectionary policy. We derive conditions under which growth induced by an increase in the flow of foreign capital will be immiserizing. The results are derived when foreign capital does not directly flow into the protected sector but alters the composition of outputs in the other traded sectors through inter-sectoral reallocation of other resources.     

Deterrence and Incapacitation Effects in a Closed Area: A Case Study of Auto Theft in Taiwan

Deterrence and incapacitation effects of auto theft are estimated with a full consideration of substitution effects across crime types and across districts in a closed area in which none of the effects will leak out. It is found that the increase in the cleared rate of auto theft crime in a certain district and in other districts strongly deters the auto theft in that district, indicating that the across‐district deterrence effect dominates the across‐district substitution effect. The across‐crime deterrence effect significantly exceeds the across‐crime substitution effect for close crime (general theft), but is insignificant for distant crime (violence).     

Childhood health and sibling outcomes: Nurture Reinforcing nature during the 1918 influenza pandemic

This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic to test how household resources are reallocated in response to a health shock to one child. Using a new dataset linking census data on childhood household characteristics to adult outcomes from military enlistment records, I show that families with a child in utero during the pandemic shifted resources to the child's older siblings, leading to significantly higher educational attainments for these older siblings. These results suggest that the reallocation of household resources in response to a negative childhood health shock tended to reinforce rather than compensate for differences in endowments across children.     

Violent Video Games and Violent Crime

Video games are an increasingly popular leisure activity. As many best‐selling games contain hyper‐realistic violence, many researchers and policymakers have hypothesized that violent games cause violent behaviors. Laboratory experiments have found evidence suggesting that violent video games increase aggression. Before drawing policy conclusions about the effect of violent games on actual behavior, these experimental studies should be subjected to tests of external validity. Our study uses a quasi‐experimental methodology to identify the short‐run and medium‐run effects of violent game sales on violent crime using time variation in retail unit sales data of the top 30 selling video games and violent criminal offenses from both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Incident‐Based Reporting System from 2005 to 2011. We find no evidence of an increase in crime associated with video games and perhaps a decrease.     

Colonies,copper, and the market for inventive activity in England and Wales, 1680–1730

Between 1680 and 1730 the English and Welsh copper industry rose from the dead and by the mid‐eighteenth century it had become Europe's leading copper producer. The revival followed the extension of sugar cultivation in England's colonies and the creation of a strong new demand for copper, which was reflected in rising exports and rising prices. Buoyant demand created a favourable market for the inventive activity needed to cut costs in the native industry, which encouraged investment in a systematic programme of research and development and culminated in important breakthroughs in smelting and mining technologies which transformed the non‐ferrous metal industries. The story provides an insight into how the economic context shaped the way useful knowledge was produced and consumed. Colonial expansion not only provided England with additional resources overseas but also encouraged the reallocation of human and financial capital to make better use of slack resources at home. Empire and technical change intersected with positive consequences for economic growth.     

The Effects of Labor Markets and Income Inequality on Crime: Evidence from Panel Data

We estimate a model of crime using panel data for the U.S. We focus on the role of labor markets, income distribution, and demographics on property crime. We find strong evidence that favorable labor market conditions have a significant negative effect on property crime. We further test this result using sector-specific wages and find that crime is most elastic with respect to wages in sectors that use low-skilled labor. We also find that income inequality has no significant effect on crime and that the proportion of young males in the population has a significant positive effect on crime.