IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/udc/wpaper/wp348.html

Identifying the determinants of crime occurrence and the deterring impact of police: Evidence across Chilean households

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Miguel Benavente
  • Javier Turen

Abstract

We analyze the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime across Chilean households. In particular, we are interested on the impact that police has on deterring crime. Novel evidence is presented and an instrumental variable correction is performed to avoid the typical reverse causality problem of police on crime. We use multilevel probit and count models to estimate di erent crime equations. Results indicate that socioeconomic and demographic characteristics have heterogeneous impact on crimes. In terms of police deterrence e ects, our results reveal that the number of police ocers has no impact on crimes su ered by families (except for burglary) while the true impact of police is determined by the workload that police must face. According to the results, a 10% increase in the workload rate (per 100,000 residents), would raise the crime rates by around 10%.

Suggested Citation

  • Jose Miguel Benavente & Javier Turen, 2012. "Identifying the determinants of crime occurrence and the deterring impact of police: Evidence across Chilean households," Working Papers wp348, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp348
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.uchile.cl/uploads/publicacion/be4549be12d184c9603db2d8bbca7c552ff366ca.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2011. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2157-2181, August.
    2. Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1244-1250, September.
    3. repec:bla:kyklos:v:41:y:1988:i:2:p:301-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Cherry, Todd L. & List, John A., 2002. "Aggregation bias in the economic model of crime," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 81-86, March.
    5. 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.
    6. Justin McCrary, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1236-1243, September.
    7. Buonanno, Paolo & Montolio, Daniel, 2008. "Identifying the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime across Spanish provinces," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 89-97, June.
    8. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 1999. "Why Is There More Crime in Cities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 225-258, December.
    9. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Elena S. Rotarou, 2018. "Does Municipal Socioeconomic Development Affect Public Perceptions of Crime? A Multilevel Logistic Regression Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(2), pages 705-724, July.

    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. 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.
    2. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.
    3. Paolo Buonanno & Giovanni Mastrobuoni, 2012. "Police and Crime: Evidence from Dictated Delays in Centralized Police Hiring," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 244, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    4. Anna Harvey, 2020. "Applying regression discontinuity designs to American political development," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 377-399, December.
    5. Cheng, Cheng & Long, Wei, 2018. "Improving police services: Evidence from the French Quarter Task Force," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-18.
    6. Fabbri, Marco & Klick, Jonathan, 2021. "The ineffectiveness of ‘observe and report’ patrols on crime," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Emiliano Tealde, 2015. "Do Police Displace Crime? The Effect of the Favela Pacification Program in Rio de Janeiro," Department of Economics University of Siena 717, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    8. Mejía, Daniel & Restrepo, Pascual, 2016. "Crime and conspicuous consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-14.
    9. Ma, Hong & Xu, Mingzhi & You, Wei & Feng, Jinmei, 2026. "Keeping an eye on the villain: Assessing the impact of surveillance cameras on crime," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    10. Mancha, André, 2025. "When the State steps down: Reduced police surveillance and gang-related deaths in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    11. Laura Jaitman, 2019. "Frontiers in the economics of crime: lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-36, December.
    12. Gerald Foong & Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi & Woan Foong Wong & Steve Machin, 2025. "Crime and Prices: Evidence From Thefts of Expensive Precious Metal," CESifo Working Paper Series 12366, CESifo.
    13. Nicolò Barbieri & Ugo Rizzo, 2023. "The impact of crime on firm entry," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 446-469, March.
    14. François Bonnet, 2025. "Less Eligibility, Welfare, and Punishment: The Econometric Evidence," Post-Print halshs-05165960, HAL.
    15. Arvate, Paulo & Souza, André Portela, 2022. "Armed police and violence: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    16. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2010. "Crime Displacement and Police Interventions: Evidence from London's "Operation Theseus"," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 359-374, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Ross, Amanda, 2012. "Crime, police, and truth-in-sentencing: The impact of state sentencing policy on local communities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 144-152.
    18. Steven N. Durlauf & Daniel S. Nagin, 2010. "The Deterrent Effect of Imprisonment," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 43-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Kevin C. Corinth & Claire Rossi-de Vries, 2017. "The impact of social ties on homelessness," AEI Economics Working Papers 930649, American Enterprise Institute.
    20. Lovett, Nicholas & Xue, Yuhan, 2022. "Rare homicides, criminal behavior, and the returns to police labor," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 172-195.

    More about this item

    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:udc:wpaper:wp348. 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: Mohit Karnani (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuclcl.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.