Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Are "Gangstas" Peacocks? The Handicap Principle and Illicit Markets

Contents:

Author Info

  • Andrew Mell
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Criminals who wear gang colors are acting in a surprisingly brazen way which must increase the probability of being caught and punished by the police.� In our model this brazen behavior is a solution to an enforcement problem.� The central idea is that less able criminals see lower gains from continued participation in crime because they will be caught and punished more often.� Lower future gains imply that reputational concerns will be less effective at enforcing honesty.� Only dealing with brazen criminals will become a good way to avoid dealing with incompetent criminals, because they cannot afford to mimic the brazen behavior.� The principle is similar to the selection for a handicap in evolutionary biology.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/working_papers/paper558.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by University of Oxford, Department of Economics in its series Economics Series Working Papers with number 558.

    as in new window
    Length:
    Date of creation: 01 Jul 2011
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:558

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: Manor Rd. Building, Oxford, OX1 3UQ
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords: Illegal behaviour and the enforcement of law; Information; Uncertainty;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    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.:
    as in new window
    1. Okuno-Fujiwara Masahiro & Postlewaite Andrew, 1995. "Social Norms and Random Matching Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 79-109, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. An Economic Analysis of Gang Colors
      by Christopher Shea in Ideas Market on 2011-08-02 17:09:22
    2. The Economics of Gang Colors
      by Josh Wright in Truth on the Market on 2011-08-04 02:31:21

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:558

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Caroline Wise).

    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.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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