An Economic Analysis of Violent Crime

Petros Sekeris and Tanguy van Ypersele

Revue d'économie politique, 2020, vol. 130, issue 6, 975-999

Abstract: In this article we propose a theoretical model to better comprehend the effect of gun laws on violent property crime. We assume that a violent encounter between a criminal and a victim is costly to both, and we uncover two types of equilibria: a pure strategy violent equilibrium and a mixed strategy equilibrium where the criminal is deterred with strictly positive probability. The effect of a relaxation of gun laws is shown to be conditional on both initial gun laws and on the relative improvement of the victims’ defense capacity relative to the criminals’ offense capacity. We uncover a potentially inverted U-shaped relationship between gun laws leniency and investments in violent activities which helps reconciling seemingly contradictory empirical findings. JEL Classification: C72, D74, P48

Keywords: Crime; Gun Laws; Deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D74 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Working Paper: An Economic Analysis of Violent Crim (2020)
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