Making space for crime: A spatial analysis of criminal competition

Gregory DeAngelo

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2012, vol. 42, issue 1-2, 42-51

Abstract: This paper utilizes a spatial competition model to analyze criminal activity. Criminals are heterogeneous in their cost of providing illegal goods and compete by choosing a location and a price for the distribution of the illegal goods to clients. The locational choice of criminals and law enforcement technology are permitted to interact and the spatial equilibrium of criminals is determined. A particularly striking finding is that an increase in law enforcement effort can increase the market share of criminals by forcing low productivity criminals out of the market, thereby allowing fewer criminals to serve the inelastic demands of the illegal goods market.

Keywords: Spatial/imperfect competition; Industrial organization; Enforcement; Hotelling; Crime; Criminal organizations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 L51 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046211000597
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:42:y:2012:i:1:p:42-51

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2011.04.008

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().