The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 59 No. 4 1977
Union Impact: A Reduced Form Approach
Abstract
whatever the alternative activities might be. Even more generally, protective behavior such as staying at home is widely used, carrying with it substantial opportunity costs. These findings then clearly suggest that the total social cost of crime is understated if only the direct costs of victimization and the expenditures for protection are considered. In this analysis of individual households' responses to crime it is reasonable to treat victimization rates as exogenous. But in a complete model of crime and protection it would be desirable to account for the collective effect of private protection (as well as public police) on the level of crime in the community. The net effect of private protection on the crime rate, however, is unclear. On the one hand, protective measures such as the use of alarms, locks, and watch dogs tend to reduce the crime rate by reducing the expected return to criminal activity. However, some of the measures that individual households adopt for their own protection may in fact increase the level of crime. For example, in the absence of protective behavior, individuals may routinely produce external benefits for their neighbors by keeping watch over the street or by challenging suspicious strangers in the area. If the adoption of protective measures-such as staying inside rather than going out or taking taxis rather than walking-reduces these formerly routine external benefits, there may be a net social loss resulting from private protection. In this case, policies of reducing nighttime fares on public transportation or subsidizing local neighborhood surveillance programs can be justified on efficiency grounds.7
- DOI
- 10.2307/1928716
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 503
- Sources
- openalex crossref