News and Noise in Crime Politics: The Role of Announcements and Risk Attitudes

Wolfgang Maennig and Stefan Wilhelm (stefan.wilhelm@uni-hamburg.de)
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Stefan Wilhelm: Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg

No 72, Working Papers from Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg

Abstract: We examine the short- and medium-term effects of announcements of changes in anti-crime policies in the distant future (news shocks) and provide a first extension of the analysis to cases where the announced policy changes may not be realized in the end (noise shocks). We further innovate by analyzing the effects of policy changes that increase the variance while holding the expected values of policy instruments constant. We confirm that news shocks can bring about immediate changes in delinquency. However, announcements of tighter anti-crime policies may even increase delinquent activities, at least temporarily. In the case of noise shocks, we observe persistent reactions of potential offenders, indicating that a credible communication strategy may generate an impact on crime politics. Finally, increasing the variance of policy instruments without changing the mean expected detection rate may have similar effects.

Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2022-08-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Hamburg Contemporary Economic Discussions, Issue 72, 2022

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http://www.hced.uni-hamburg.de/WorkingPapers/HCED-072.pdf First Version, 2022 (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: News and noise in crime politics: The role of announcements and risk attitudes (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hce:wpaper:072

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