Individual Protection Against Property Crime: Decomposing the Effects of Protection Observability

Louis Hotte () and Tanguy van Ypersele ()

No 5293, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We revisit the question of the efficiency of individual decisions to be protected against crime for the cases of both observable and unobservable protection. We obtain that observable protection is unambiguously associated with a negative externality and that at the individual level, it has a deterrence effect but no payoff reduction effect. Unobservable protection has a global deterrence effect and is associated with a private payoff reduction effect but no private deterrence effect. A decrease in the global crime payoff is detrimental to a victim if protection is observable, while it is beneficial with unobservable protection. While protection has a positive diversion effect when observable, it has the equivalent of a negative diversion effect when unobservable.

Keywords: crime; efficiency; private protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 D82 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-reg and nep-ure
Date: 2005-10

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Journal Article: Individual protection against property crime: decomposing the effects of protection observability (2008)
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