When do more police induce more crime?

Casilda Lasso de la Vega; Oscar Volij; Federico Weinschelbaum

doi:10.1007/s00199-022-01477-7

When do more police induce more crime?

Casilda Lasso de la Vega, Oscar Volij, Federico Weinschelbaum

Department of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We provide a necessary and sufficient condition on the equilibrium of a Walrasian economy for an increase in police expenditure to induce an increase in crime. It turns out that this is essentially the condition for the Laffer curve to be downward sloping at a given ad valorem tax rate. Notably, such a perverse effect of police on crime is consistent with any appropriation technology and could arise even if the level of police protection is the socially optimal one.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	759-778
Number of pages	20
Journal	Economic Theory
Volume	76
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-022-01477-7
State	Published - 1 Oct 2023

Keywords

Crime
Laffer curve
Police
Theft
Walrasian equilibrium

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics

Access to Document

10.1007/s00199-022-01477-7

Cite this

@article{5ac6de6864994eff88e2d0df627b902c,

title = "When do more police induce more crime?",

abstract = "We provide a necessary and sufficient condition on the equilibrium of a Walrasian economy for an increase in police expenditure to induce an increase in crime. It turns out that this is essentially the condition for the Laffer curve to be downward sloping at a given ad valorem tax rate. Notably, such a perverse effect of police on crime is consistent with any appropriation technology and could arise even if the level of police protection is the socially optimal one.",

keywords = "Crime, Laffer curve, Police, Theft, Walrasian equilibrium",

author = "{Lasso de la Vega}, Casilda and Oscar Volij and Federico Weinschelbaum",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.",

year = "2023",

month = oct,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1007/s00199-022-01477-7",

language = "English",

volume = "76",

pages = "759--778",

journal = "Economic Theory",

issn = "0938-2259",