The Efficiency of Crackdowns: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Public Transportations

Zhixin Dai, Fabio Galeotti and Marie Claire Villeval

No 1607, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: The concentration of high frequency controls in a limited period of time (“crackdowns”) constitutes an important feature of many law-enforcement policies around the world. In this paper, we offer a comprehensive investigation on the relative efficiency and effectiveness of various crackdown policies using a lab-in-the-field experiment with real passengers of a public transport service. We introduce a novel game, the daily public transportation game, where subjects have to decide, over many periods, whether to buy or not a ticket knowing that there might be a control. Our results show that (a) concentrated crackdowns are less effective and efficient than random controls; (b) prolonged crackdowns reduce fare-dodging during the period of intense monitoring but induces a burst of fraud as soon as they are withdrawn; (c) pre-announced controls induces more fraud in the periods without control. Overall, we also observe that real fare-dodgers fraud more in the experiment than non-faredodgers.

Keywords: Crackdowns; fraud; risk; monitoring; transportation; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-law and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The efficiency of crackdowns: a lab-in-the-field experiment in public transportations (2017)
Working Paper: The Efficiency of Crackdowns: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Public Transportations (2016)
Working Paper: The efficiency of crackdowns: A lab-in-the-field experiment in public transportations (2015)
Working Paper: The efficiency of crackdowns: A lab-in-the-field experiment in public transportations (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:1607

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