Este trabalho apresenta a teoria econômica do crime, um instrumento hábil que possibilita entender uma larga variedade de comportamentos humanos, inclusive o do ofensor bancário. Assim sendo, explicando como as decisões privadas são feitas, relativas à segurança - tanto no sentido de roubar como no sentido de proteger dos roubos -, pode-se chegar a construir uma base científica eficaz, capaz de coibir o roubo a bancos, por meio de regras que tornem as decisões quanto à segurança bancária as melhores possíveis. O modelo de escolha racional concebe o indivíduo como um agente econômico; logo, ao contemplar a possibilidade de envolvimento em um ato ilícito, responde a incentivos sócio-econômicos, a partir da avaliação racional entre ganhos e perdas esperadas, advindos das atividades ilícitas vis-à-vis o ganho alternativo no mercado legal. O objetivo deste trabalho é fazer uma análise teórica e empírica do roubo bancário, utilizando a Teoria Econômica do Crime. Destarte, será analisada, empírica e teoricamente, a abordagem econômica desenvolvida por Gary Becker, bem como se procurará responder a seguinte pergunta: o comportamento do ofensor bancário é racional?; This paper presents the economical theory of the crime...

O presente estudo tem por objetivo central a identificação de padrões espaciais na criminalidade dos municípios do Rio Grande do Sul no período 2000-2008, se valendo do instrumental econométrico-espacial para a construção de indicadores de dependência espacial em três diferentes tipos de crimes: homicídios, furtos e roubos, e furtos e roubos de veículos; onde o primeiro representa os crimes contra a pessoa, e os outros dois representam crimes contra o patrimônio. Desta forma, se espera representar o cenário da criminalidade no Estado, assim viabilizando a identificação de clusters de municípios com alta (baixa) criminalidade. Portanto, inicialmente é apresentado o arcabouço da Teoria Econômica do Crime, cujos fundamentos darão as bases para o entendimento do comportamento dos indivíduos frente à decisão racional de cometer um delito. Após, são expostos os aspectos metodológicos que possibilitam o estudo de dependência espacial nas taxas calculadas, sendo esta dependência mensurada através das estatísticas I de Moran tanto no âmbito global quanto local. Na seqüência, utilizando os softwares TerraView e GeoDa, são apresentados os resultados descritivos das taxas analisadas no período, como também os resultados das estatísticas de dependência espacial...

Esta Tese é composta por dois ensaios, nos quais são apresentados modelos teóricos de Economia do Crime. O primeiro estuda o impacto de políticas de controle de armas sobre o crime através de um modelo teórico de crime e autodefesa com o uso de armas. As principais conclusões são que mudanças nos payoffs geram equilíbrios distintos, além disso, o controle de armas leva a uma redução nos crimes com armas e que estas políticas são mais eficientes quando afetam os custos tanto de criminosos quanto das vítimas. O segundo propõe um modelo dinâmico baseado em opções reais para avaliar a carreira criminosa. No modelo, os indivíduos podem escolher o melhor momento para se engajar no crime (atividade ilegal). Através da calibragem do modelo é possível observar que a opção por uma carreira criminosa depende de um retorno alto na atividade ilegal mesmo quando os indivíduos são neutros ao risco e possuem uma taxa de desconto intertemporal baixa.; This Thesis is composed by two essays, which theoretical models of economics of crime are presented. The first studies the impact of gun control policies on crime trough a theoretical model of crime and self-defense with guns. The main conclusions are that payoffs change generates different equilibriums...

This work aims to estimate an empirical model for three kinds of crime in Sao Paulo city: homicides, robberies and car thefts. It uses as geographical units the areas belonging to each police districts and takes in account spatial effects among the variables. The results show important differences when we deal with crime against people and crime against property.; Esto trabajo búsqueda estudiar un modelo empírico para tres tipos de crimen en la ciudad de Sao Paulo: muertes, robos y hurto de automóviles. Las unidades geográficas son las regiones cerca de las centrales de policía y considera los efectos espaciales de interacción entre las variables. Los resultados muestran importantes diferencias en los crímenes que envuelven personas y propiedades.; Este trabalho tem como objetivo estimar um modelo empírico para três tipos de crime no município de São Paulo: homicídios, roubos e furto de veículos. O trabalho usa como unidades geográficas as áreas de atuação dos distritos policiais e leva em conta possíveis efeitos espaciais entre as variáveis. Os resultados mostram diferenças importantes quando tratamos com crimes contra a pessoa e contra a propriedade.

This dissertation studies three aspects of the economics of climate change: how rising sea levels will affect coastal homeowners in Florida; how changes in weather will affect the prevalence of crime in the United States; and why skepticism about climate change is so common among the general public. Chapter 1 uses housing market data to estimate the welfare costs of shoreline loss along coastal beaches in Florida. I develop a structural housing market model and use it to provide a welfare interpretation for the coefficients from a new “discontinuity matching” hedonic research design. Using housing sales data, beach width surveys, and historical beach nourishment records, I then estimate Florida homeowners’ willingness to pay for an extra foot of sand. I find that changes in beach width have little impact on housing prices, except possibly at very eroded beaches. Chapter 2 estimates the impact of climate change on the prevalence of criminal activity in the United States. The analysis is based on monthly crime and weather data for 2,972 U.S. counties from 1960 to 2009. The results show that temperature has a strong positive effect on criminal behavior, and that between 2010 and 2099, climate change will cause an additional 35...

by Sean Michael May.; Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2000.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-123).

Scholars have often argued that crime deters growth, but the empirical literature assessing such effect is scarce. By exploiting cross-municipality income and crime data for Mexico -- a country that experienced a high increase in crime rates over the past decade -- this study circumvents two of the most common problems faced by researchers in this area. These are: (i) the lack of a homogenous, consistently comparable measure of crime and (ii) the small sample problem in the estimation. Combining income data from poverty maps, administrative records on crime and violence, and public expenditures data at the municipal level for Mexico (2005-2010), the analysis finds evidence indicating that drug-related crimes indeed deter growth. It also finds no evidence of a negative effect on growth from crimes unrelated to drug trafficking.

Countries everywhere are divided into two distinct spatial realms: one urban, one rural. Classic models of development predict faster growth in the urban sector, causing rapid migration from rural areas to cities, lifting average incomes in both places. The process continues until the marginal productivity of labor is equalized across the two realms. The pattern of rising urbanization accompanying economic growth has become one of the most visible and self-evident empirical facts of development across the world, with almost 200,000 people making the rural-to-urban trek every day, according to the United Nations. Cities across the world are powering growth, development, and modernization. The study then takes a close look at Diepsloot, a large township in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Area, to bring out more vividly the economic realities and choices of township residents. Although atypical in many ways, by the virtue of being newer, poorer, and more informal, with a bigger concentration of migrants (many of them foreign nationals)...

Este trabalho analisa a economia do crime baseado em evidências empíricas obtidas através de um estudo sobre mulheres apenadas no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. O estudo em questão tem por base os crimes lucrativos. Foram avaliados através de pesquisas e entrevistas, realizadas na unidade Penitenciária Madre Pelletier, em Porto Alegre, os principais motivos do aumento da população carcerária feminina, que tem hoje como base o delito tráfico de entorpecentes, art. 33 do Código Penal, como sendo o crime de maior índice desta população chegando a compor 86% da mesma, como foi verificado nas tabelas e figuras. Dentre esses motivos, estão: indução do companheiro, necessidade de ajuda no orçamento familiar, idéia de ganho fácil e influência familiar (dar continuidade nos “negócios” da família). Com relação aos resultados financeiros obtidos, a maioria das apenadas relatou como sendo muito compensador o retorno lucrativo advindo dessas atividades ilícitas, argumentando a pouca oferta de emprego assim como o baixo nível de escolaridade das entrevistadas. As variáveis apontadas para diminuir os crimes lucrativos, foram: a liberação das autoridades para o consumo de drogas na sociedade e mais oportunidade de emprego.; This study aims at the economics of crime based on empirical evidence obtained through a study of women prisoners in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The study in question is based on profitable crimes. The main reasons for the increase in female prisoner population were assessed through surveys and interviews conducted in the unit Madre Pelletier Penitentiary in Porto Alegre. These crimes...

This dissertation presents work empirically investigating various aspects of the criminal justice system. Chapter one, coauthored with Chris Rohlfs, examines the judicial bail-setting process and the defendant decision to pay bail. Optimal bail-setting rules must balance the tradeoffs between costs to defendants and costs to society. This chapter develops a model of optimal bail that incorporates the cost of jailing the defendant, the private cost to the defendant from being incarcerated, the cost of crime, and the costs that arise when defendants abscond. The model is empirically calibrated using data from a randomized experiment. The randomized experiment allows the use of defendants' bail posting decisions to estimate their subjective values of freedom. Our estimates suggest that high-risk defendants would be willing to pay $300 to $1,000 for 90 days of freedom. We find the socially optimal level of bail to be substantially lower than levels currently set by judges. Aggregating nationally, we find that the total social benefit of reform would be on the order of $10 billion per year. Chapter two, coauthored with Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, is a study of the impact of defendant race on interjudge sentencing disparity...

The economic analysis of crime, security and violence is based uponthe original article by Gary S. Becker whose title is Crime and Punishment: aneconomic approach. The central piece of Becker’s theoretical model is theeconomic reasoning of comparing gains and costs from de individual’s point ofview. Becker assumes that the criminal activity is the result of some socialparameters and then searches for an optimal situation from the social viewpoint,which is defined as the situation of minimum total cost. Crime, security andviolence have acquired such an importance in the 21st Century that a reflection onthe Becker’s model is required in order to give scientific basis to developing and adopting more effective public policies. This article aims to lend a hand to thatreflection by presenting a significant set of inquiries.; A análise econômica da criminalidade, da segurança e da violênciatoma por base o trabalho original de Gary S. Becker, intitulado Crime andPunishment: an economic approach. A peça central do modelo de Becker é oraciocínio econômico de comparação de ganhos e de custos do ponto de vista doindivíduo. Becker considera a atividade criminosa como o resultado de umasérie de parâmetros sociais e busca a situação ótima do ponto de vista dasociedade...

This paper does a spatial analysis of crime in Rio Grande do Sul. Itpresents a spatial econometric model for criminality determinants. The modelfollows main contributions to the economics of crime, but it includes contributionsfrom the ecological approach and social learning. In the model, the criminality in cities can be explained by local characteristics, and the environment, theneighborhood and the individual’s history affect the criminality. The paper usesaggregate city data for homicides, robberies and thefts in a cross-sectional modelfor the year of 2000. The findings show the existence of spatial dependence inrobberies and thefts and spatial independence in homicides. The paper emphasizesthe role of income inequality and of urban agglomerations as factors thatincrements the criminality in cities. It also discusses the importance of familyand schooling on explaining criminality. It shows that problems in the familystructure and in schooling affect the crimes positively. The benefits of crime andopportunity costs are separated, which allows concluding that economic growthdoes not increase criminality. This happens if there is an increase in the income ofthe poorest, leading to a fall in criminality.; Este artigo faz uma análise espacial da criminalidade no Estado doRio Grande do Sul. Para este fim...

In this paper we look at links between police resources and crime in a different way to the existing economics of crime work. To do so we focus on a policy intervention - the Street Crime Initiative - that was introduced in England and Wales in 2002. This allocated additional resources to some police force areas to combat street crime, whereas other forces did not receive any additional funding. Estimates derived from several empirical strategies show that robberies did fall significantly in SCI police forces relative to non-SCI forces after the initiative was introduced. Moreover, the policy seems to have been a cost effective one. There is some heterogeneity in this positive net social benefit across different SCI police forces, suggesting that some police forces may have made better use of the extra resources than others. Overall, we reach the conclusion that increased police resources do in fact lead to lower crime, at least in the context of the SCI programme we study.

Is the number of films containing crime increasing? If so, for which kinds of films? Using a sample of synopses for all films released in Britain between 1945 and 1991 we identify shifts in the major film genres and their proportion of crime contents. The overall proportion of crime films remains constant, as does the proportion of crime contents in all film genres. But this masks underlying differences. Content analysis reveals which genres, including those with both high and low crime contents, are rising or falling in popularity. It also reveals that for some genres, the proportion of films containing crime is rising. No differences were found between British and American films in terms of proportion of crime contents by genre. This historical content analysis provides an overview of trends in the inclusion of crime in film. These trends offer a broader context for the interpretation of more detailed analyses of single films. The implications for the audience's expectations of films are discussed.

This paper examines the relationship between immigration and crime in a setting where large migration flows offer an opportunity to carefully appraise whether the populist view that immigrants cause crime is borne out by rigorous evidence. We consider possible crime effects from two large waves of immigration that recently occurred in the UK. The first of these was the late 1990s/early 2000s wave of asylum seekers, and the second the large inflow of workers from EU accession countries that took place from 2004. A simple economics of crime model, when dovetailed with facts about the relative labour market position of these migrant groups, suggests net returns to criminal activity are likely to be very different for the two waves. In fact, we show that the first wave led to a small rise in property crime, whilst the second wave had no such impact. There was no observable effect on violent crime for either wave. Nor were immigrant arrest rates different to natives. Evidence from victimization data also suggests that the changes in crime rates during the immigrant waves cannot be ascribed to crimes against immigrants. Overall, our findings suggest that focusing on the limited labour market opportunities of asylum seekers could have beneficial effects on crime rates.

For nearly a decade, Mexico has been embroiled in a war against organized crime, with little success. But how has this often violent campaign affected people’s fears of crime and victimization? In new research, Carlos J. Vilalta uses data from Mexico’s national victimization survey, and finds that people’s daily routines have been affected by their fears about crime, with many now no longer going out at night as a result, and that this is trend that can be made worse by people’s lack of trust in the police. He writes that policy makers need to distinguish between policies to get crime under control and policies to reduce people’s fear of crime.

Which policies should be implemented in order to reduce crime? How can we judge whether these policies are successful? Nils Braakmann finds that Lessons from the Economics of Crime offers a good overview of some of the questions with which economists interested in crime have been concerned. Chapters cover re-offending, youth in the justice system, organized crime in Italy, and immigration and integration. Recommended reading for journalists, policy makers, or social scientists who are interested in what economics can bring to the table when it comes to research into crime.

A large number of criminological theories predict a link between crime and the labour market. This thesis takes predictions from those theories and tests them empirically. Using a large range of data and quantitative techniques, this work considers which factors are most associated with crime, while at the same time addressing issues of methodology and interpretation. The thesis consists of seven Chapters. The first introduces the issues surrounding crime and the labour market, describes the theories which inform the research and discuss the existing empirical work in the area. Sections also describe the data and methodological debates of concern in this field. The empirical analysis, which forms the body of the thesis, follows from this introduction in five inter-related Chapters. The first two deal with establishing which variables are most associated with crime, which data are most useful and which methodological techniques are most appropriate. They cover cross-sectional analysis, as well as area level longitudinal data at police force area level and Local Authority level over time. The results point to clear methodological advantages of using area level data and find the most robust correlate of crime to be low wages. The following Chapter uses these findings to frame an analysis of police force area level data in England and Wales. It examines the effect on crime of a substantial pay increase awarded to low wage workers with the introduction of the National Minimum Wage into the UK labour market in April 1999. By comparing crime rates in areas before and after the introduction of the Minimum Wage...

I present three essays on the economics of crime. The first considers an activity associated with 55% of all criminal offences in the UK: binge drinking. One group inextricably linked with such behaviour is the sports team. Members regularly engage in post-match drinking, where the team's reputation is at stake. Teams often apply peer pressure (the threat of punishment for refusal to compete) to ensure each member gets involved. Chapter 1 presents a simple model of competitive drinking, and evaluates the amount of peer pressure a team needs to apply when multiple equilibria exist. The thesis then turns attention towards criminal organisations. Chapter 2 discusses the use of initiation by protection rackets. Such rituals are widely used, and serve several purposes. Firstly, they allow initiates' skills to be assessed. Secondly, they act as an incentive to invest in skills. Thirdly, they signal to the racket's customers. The chapter derives conditions on the underlying distribution of abilities such that a racket can adjust initiation difficulty to improve its reputation. It then discusses these conditions in light of "key player" policies, suggesting they may be more effective than previously thought. Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of a variety of anti-crime policies on how a criminal gang recruits. Gangs counteract policy effects by adjusting the wage they offer and the intensity of violence they require their members to inflict. This can lead to policies backfiring; increasing the social cost of the gang. A policy which reduces the youths' incentive to join a gang leaves only hardened criminals as recruits. If gang size and violence are weak revenue complements...