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Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces after a Terrorist Attack

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Author Info
Rafael Di Tella
Ernesto Schargrodsky
Abstract

An important challenge in the crime literature is to isolate causal effects of police on crime. Following a terrorist attack on the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 1994, all Jewish institutions received police protection. Thus, this hideous event induced a geographical allocation of police forces that can be presumed exogenous in a crime regression. Using data on the location of car thefts before and after the attack, we find a large deterrent effect of observable police on crime. The effect is local, with no appreciable impact outside the narrow area in which the police are deployed.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 94 (2004)
Issue (Month): 1 (March)
Pages: 115-133
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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:94:y:2004:i:1:p:115-133

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  2. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects With Random Assignment: Results For Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Witte, Ann Dryden, 1980. "Estimating the Economic Model of Crime with Individual Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 57-84, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-in-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 313-36, June.
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  9. Freeman, Richard B, 1996. "Why Do So Many Young American Men Commit Crimes and What Might We Do about It?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 25-42, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. LaLonde, Robert J, 1986. "Evaluating the Econometric Evaluations of Training Programs with Experimental Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 604-20, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Cameron, Samuel, 1988. "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2), pages 301-23.
  18. Avner Bar-Ilan & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "The Response to Fines and Probability of Detection in a Series of Experiments," NBER Working Papers 8638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Mark Duggan, 2001. "More Guns, More Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 1086-1114, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiani & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2006. "Crime Distribution and Victim Behavior during a Crime Wave," Working Papers 0044, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. [Downloadable!]
  2. Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., 2007. "Child Protection and Adult Crime: Using Investigator Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of Foster Care," NBER Working Papers 13291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiani & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2006. "Crime Distribution & Victim Behavior During a Crime Wave," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp849, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross Business School. [Downloadable!]
  4. Panu Poutvaara & Mikael Priks, 2006. "Hooliganism in the Shadow of the 9/11 Terrorist Attack and the Tsunami: Do Police Reduce Group Violence?," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  5. Dean Yang, 2004. "Can Enforcement Backfire? Crime Displacement in the Context of Customs Reform in the Philippines," Working Papers 520, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan. [Downloadable!]
  6. Michael S. Visser & William T. Harbaugh & Naci Mocan, 2006. "An Experimental Test of Criminal Behavior Among Juveniles and Young Adults," University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers 2006-11, University of Oregon Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
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