Predation, Protection and Productivity: A Firm-Level Perspective

Timothy Besley and Hannes Mueller

No 900, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the consequences of predation when firms deploy guard labor as a means of protecting themselves. We build a simple model and combine it with data for 142 countries from the World Bank enterprise surveys which ask about firm-level experiences with predation and spending on protection. We use the model to estimate the output loss caused by the misallocation of labor across firms and from production to protection. The loss due to protection effort is substantial and patterns of state protection at the micro level can have a profound impact on aggregate output losses. Various extensions are discussed.

Keywords: Property rights; predation; firm data; labour misallocation; security; aggregate output loss; law enforcement; enterprise surveys; cost of crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 O12 O43 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Predation, Protection, and Productivity: A Firm-Level Perspective (2018)
Working Paper: Predation, protection, and productivity: a firm-level perspective (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:900

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