American Economic Review Vol. 94 No. 1 2004
Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces After a Terrorist Attack
open access
Abstract
An important challenge in the crime literature is to isolate causal effects of police on crime. Following a terrorist attack on the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 1994, all Jewish institutions received police protection. Thus, this hideous event induced a geographical allocation of police forces that can be presumed exogenous in a crime regression. Using data on the location of car thefts before and after the attack, we find a large deterrent effect of observable police on crime. The effect is local, with no appreciable impact outside the narrow area in which the police are deployed.
- DOI
- 10.1257/000282804322970733
- Volume
- 94
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 115-133
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex