American Economic Review Vol. 100 No. 3 2010

A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns

Jan Eeckhout¹; Nicola Persico²; Petra E. Todd³

¹ Department of Economics, ICREA-GSE Barcelona, Trias Fargas 25, 08005 Barcelona. · ² Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, New York, NY 10012. · ³ Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Abstract

An incentives based theory of policing is developed which can explain the phenomenon of random “crackdowns,” i.e., intermittent periods of high interdiction/surveillance. For a variety of police objective functions, random crackdowns can be part of the optimal monitoring strategy. We demonstrate support for implications of the crackdown theory using traffic data gathered by the Belgian Police Department and use the model to estimate the deterrence effect of additional resources spent on speeding interdiction.

DOI

10.1257/aer.100.3.1104

Volume

100

Issue

3

Pages

1104-1135

Language

en

Sources

openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

Cite

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