Are US Cities Underpoliced? Theory and Evidence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chalfin, Aaron; McCrary, Justin
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00694
• 发表日期: 2018-03
• 页码: 167-186
• 关键词: electoral cycles; hot-spots; economic-model; crack cocaine; violent crime; reduce crime; panel-data; police; deterrence; variables

摘要

We document the extent of measurement errors in the basic data set on police used in the literature on the effect of police on crime. Analyzing medium to large U.S. cities over 1960 to 2010, we obtain measurement error-corrected estimates of the police elasticity. The magnitudes of our estimates are similar to those obtained in the quasi-experimental literature, but our approach yields much greater parameter certainty for the most costly crimes, the key parameters for welfare analysis. Our analysis suggests that U.S. cities are substantially underpoliced.