IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v87y1997i3p270-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime

Author

Listed:
  • Levitt, Steven D

Abstract

Previous empirical studies have uncovered little evidence that police reduce crime, possibly due to simultaneity problems. This paper uses the timing of mayoral and gubernatorial elections as an instrument variable to identify a causal effect of police on crime. Increases in the size of police forces are shown to be disproportionately concentrated in mayoral and gubernatorial election years. Increases in police are shown to substantially reduce violent crime but have a smaller impact on property crime. The null hypothesis that the marginal social benefit of reduced crime equals the costs of hiring additional police cannot be rejected. Copyright 1997 by American Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-290, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:87:y:1997:i:3:p:270-90
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28199706%2987%3A3%3C270%3AUECIPH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alesina, Alberto & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1988. "Political Parties and the Business Cycle in the United States, 1948-1984," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 20(1), pages 63-82, February.
    2. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & José A. Scheinkman, 1996. "Crime and Social Interactions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(2), pages 507-548.
    3. Samuel Cameron, 1988. "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 301-323, May.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. James Andreoni, 1991. "Reasonable Doubt and the Optimal Magnitude of Fines: Should the Penalty Fit the Crime?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(3), pages 385-395, Autumn.
    6. Craig, Steven G., 1987. "The deterrent impact of police: An examination of a locally provided public service," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 298-311, May.
    7. McCormick, Robert E & Tollison, Robert D, 1984. "Crime on the Court," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 223-235, April.
    8. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 1995. "Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 769-798.
    9. Helen Tauchen & Ann Dryden Witte & Harriet Griesinger, 1993. "Criminal Deterrence: Revisiting the Issue with a Birth Cohort," NBER Working Papers 4277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 521-565, May-June.
    11. Chubb, John E., 1988. "Institutions, the Economy, and the Dynamics of State Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 133-154, March.
    12. Cameron, Samuel, 1988. "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 301-323.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kessler, Daniel P & Levitt, Steven D, 1999. "Using Sentence Enhancements to Distinguish between Deterrence and Incapacitation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 343-363, April.
    2. Levitt, Steven D, 1998. "Why Do Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or Measurement Error?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 353-372, July.
    3. Levitt Steven D., 2002. "Testing the Economic Model of Crime:The National Hockey League's Two-Referee Experiment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, January.
    4. Rafael Di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2004. "Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces After a Terrorist Attack," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 115-133, March.
    5. Steven D. Levitt, 1998. "Juvenile Crime and Punishment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1156-1185, December.
    6. David L. Sollars & Bruce L. Benson & David W. Rasmussen, 1994. "Drug Enforcement and the Deterrence of Property Crime Among Local Jurisdictions," Public Finance Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 22-45, January.
    7. Álvaro José Moreno García, 2005. "Impacto De Transmilenio En El Crimen De La Avenida Caracas Y Sus Vecindades," Documentos CEDE 2809, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    8. Yamamura, Eiji, 2009. "Formal and informal deterrents of crime in Japan: Roles of police and social capital revisited," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 611-621, August.
    9. Ibanez, Marcela & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2010. "A survey-based choice experiment on coca cultivation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 249-263, November.
    10. Paolo Buonanno, 2003. "The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime. A Review of the Literature," Working Papers 63, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2003.
    11. Guido Travaglini, 2003. "Property Crime and Law Enforcement in Italy. A Regional Panel Analysis 1980-95," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 62(2), pages 211-240, October.
    12. Sergio Beraldo & Raul Caruso & Gilberto Turati, 2012. "Life is Now! Time Discounting and Crime: Aggregate Evidence from the Italian Regions (2002-2007)," Working papers 013, Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    13. Beraldo, Sergio & Caruso, Raul & Turati, Gilberto, 2013. "Life is now! Time preferences and crime: Aggregate evidence from the Italian regions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 73-81.
    14. Entorf, Horst & Spengler, Hannes, 1998. "Kriminalität, ihre Ursachen und ihre Bekämpfung: warum auch Ökonomen gefragt sind," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 24660, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    15. GholamReza Keshavarz Haddad & Hamed Markazi Moghadam, 2011. "The socioeconomic and demographic determinants of crime in Iran (a regional panel study)," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 99-114, August.
    16. Wilson, Dennis P., 2005. "Additional law enforcement as a deterrent to criminal behavior: empirical evidence from the National Hockey League," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 319-330, May.
    17. Marceau, Nicolas & Mongrain, Steeve, 1999. "Dissuader le crime : un survol," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 123-147, mars-juin.
    18. Ishita Chatterjee & Ranjan Ray, 2009. "Crime, Corruption and Institutions," Monash Economics Working Papers 20-09, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    19. Justina A.V. Fischer, 2005. "The Impact of Direct Democracy on Crime: Is the Median Voter Boundedly Rational?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2005 2005-14, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    20. Kenneth Burdett & Ricardo Lagos & Randall Wright, 2003. "Crime, Inequality, and Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1764-1777, December.

    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
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime (AER 1997) in ReplicationWiki

    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:aea:aecrev:v:87:y:1997:i:3:p:270-90. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.