IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v58y2020i2p717-744.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Empirical Characterization Of The Dynamic Effects Of Police Spending On Violent And Property Crime

Author

Listed:
  • Bebonchu Atems

Abstract

The study estimates the dynamic effects of shocks to police expenditures on measures of violent and property crime rates using annual U.S. state‐level data for the period 1960–2015. We employ a structural panel VAR model and achieve identification by imposing the restriction that police spending responds to structural shocks to crime with at least a lag of 1 year. Results indicate that a shock to police spending leads to (a) persistent and significant decreases in violent and property crime rates and (b) significant and persistent negative impacts on crime rates in periods of high crime but little impacts in periods of low crime. Variance decompositions show that shocks to police spending account for moderate to large proportions of the variability of U.S. state‐level crime rates. Our findings are robust across separate measures of violent and property crime rates, as well as to the inclusion of additional variables to the baseline panel VAR model. (JEL K42)

Suggested Citation

  • Bebonchu Atems, 2020. "An Empirical Characterization Of The Dynamic Effects Of Police Spending On Violent And Property Crime," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(2), pages 717-744, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:58:y:2020:i:2:p:717-744
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12866
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12866
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecin.12866?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Law and Economics > Economics of Crime > Crime Prevention > Police Funding > Impact

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nana Kwabena Kufuor & Kevin Williams, 2024. "A source of funding for illicit activities or a solution to crime? Evidence from remittance inflows to Jamaica," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 3-25, January.
    2. Bebonchu Atems, 2020. "Identifying the Dynamic Effects of Income Inequality on Crime," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(4), pages 751-782, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:58:y:2020:i:2:p:717-744. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.