Policing and crime: dynamic panel evidence from California

Nicholas Lovett, David M Welsch and Yuhan Xue

Oxford Economic Papers, 2023, vol. 75, issue 3, 750-779

Abstract: We exploit police and crime data from California over 26 years to construct a dynamic panel, which is then estimated using Arellano–Bover/Blundell–Bond techniques to address concerns about simultaneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and inertial effects in the policing-crime relationship. We find no evidence that increases in police staffing lead to meaningful reductions in crime through either deterrence or incapacitation. Estimates are not wholly supportive of a compelling relationship between prior criminal offending and current police staffing; providing suggestive evidence that, at least within our sample, simultaneity bias may be more modest in nature than has been previously supposed in prior studies.

JEL-codes: H76 J18 K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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