The table of contents for the "February" issue of Journal of Law and Economics arrived in my mailbox this morning. Here is the crim. law stuff, after the jump:
Arrest Avoidance: Law Enforcement and the Price of Cocaine
Beth A. Freeborn
The Journal of Law and Economics February 2009, Vol. 52, No. 1: 19-40.
Contrary to one goal of drug law enforcement, cocaine prices decreased between the years 1986 and 2000. This paper discusses how arrest avoidance behavior may affect cocaine consumer and dealer response to law enforcement. Dealers avoid arrest by making quick and easy sales; thus, pure‐gram price is negatively related to dealer enforcement. Consumers avoid arrest by accepting high prices rather than searching for lower prices. Thus, pure‐gram price is positively related to consumer enforcement. Because the implications from arrest avoidance conflict with traditional models of how enforcement should affect prices, I also empirically examine the relationship. Using purchase‐level data from the Drug Enforcement Administration and legal penalty data, I find a negative, significant relationship between dealer enforcement and pure‐gram price and a positive, significant relationship between consumer enforcement and pure‐gram price. Both are consistent with the intuition of arrest avoidance.
Does Social Capital Reduce Crime?
Paolo Buonanno, Daniel Montolio, and Paolo Vanin
The Journal of Law and Economics February 2009, Vol. 52, No. 1: 145-170.
We investigate the effects of civic norms and associational networks on crime rates. Civic norms may attach guilt and shame to criminal behavior, thus increasing its opportunity cost. Associational networks may increase returns to noncriminal activities and raise detection probabilities, but they may also work as communication channels for criminals and may offer official cover to criminal activities. The empirical assessment of these effects poses serious problems of endogeneity, omitted variables, measurement error, and spatial correlation. Italy's great variance in social and economic characteristics, its homogeneity in policies and institutions, and the availability of historical data on social capital in its regions allow us to minimize the first two problems. To tackle the last two problems, we use report‐rate‐adjusted crime rates and estimate a spatial lag model. We find that both civic norms and associational networks have a negative and significant effect on property crimes across Italian provinces.
Beth A. Freeborn
The Journal of Law and Economics February 2009, Vol. 52, No. 1: 19-40.
Contrary to one goal of drug law enforcement, cocaine prices decreased between the years 1986 and 2000. This paper discusses how arrest avoidance behavior may affect cocaine consumer and dealer response to law enforcement. Dealers avoid arrest by making quick and easy sales; thus, pure‐gram price is negatively related to dealer enforcement. Consumers avoid arrest by accepting high prices rather than searching for lower prices. Thus, pure‐gram price is positively related to consumer enforcement. Because the implications from arrest avoidance conflict with traditional models of how enforcement should affect prices, I also empirically examine the relationship. Using purchase‐level data from the Drug Enforcement Administration and legal penalty data, I find a negative, significant relationship between dealer enforcement and pure‐gram price and a positive, significant relationship between consumer enforcement and pure‐gram price. Both are consistent with the intuition of arrest avoidance.
Does Social Capital Reduce Crime?
Paolo Buonanno, Daniel Montolio, and Paolo Vanin
The Journal of Law and Economics February 2009, Vol. 52, No. 1: 145-170.
We investigate the effects of civic norms and associational networks on crime rates. Civic norms may attach guilt and shame to criminal behavior, thus increasing its opportunity cost. Associational networks may increase returns to noncriminal activities and raise detection probabilities, but they may also work as communication channels for criminals and may offer official cover to criminal activities. The empirical assessment of these effects poses serious problems of endogeneity, omitted variables, measurement error, and spatial correlation. Italy's great variance in social and economic characteristics, its homogeneity in policies and institutions, and the availability of historical data on social capital in its regions allow us to minimize the first two problems. To tackle the last two problems, we use report‐rate‐adjusted crime rates and estimate a spatial lag model. We find that both civic norms and associational networks have a negative and significant effect on property crimes across Italian provinces.
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