An Intertemporal Model of Rational Criminal Choice

This research presents a dynamic model of crime in which agents anticipate future consequences of their actions. Current period decisions affect future outcomes by a process of capital accumulation. While investigating the role of human capital, the focus of our study is on a form of capital that has received somewhat less attention in the literature, social capital. Social capital is an index of one's 'stock' in society. Introduction of social capital into the utility function results in an intertemporally nonseparable preference structure which admits state dependence in the decision to participate in crime. Our model is empirically implemented using panel data on a sample from the 1958 Philadelphia Birth Cohort Study. In estimation, we take account of unobserved choices in states not realized, which potentially depend on individual specific heterogeneity, by using simulation techniques. Our results provide evidence of state dependence in the decision to participate in crime. We also find that the initial level of social capital stock is important in determining the pattern of criminal involvement in adulthood.

The Effect of Statutory Rape Laws on Teen Birth Rates

Policymakers have often been explicit in expanding statutory rape laws to reduce teenage pregnancies and live births by teenage mothers, often with the goal of reducing associated welfare outlays. In this paper, we explore whether expansions in such laws are indeed associated with reductions in teen birth rates. In order to codify statutory-rape-law expansions, we use a national micro-level sample of sexual encounters to simulate the degree to which such encounters generally implicate the relevant laws. By codifying statutory-rape laws in terms of their potential reach into sexual encounters, as opposed to using crude binary treatment variables, this simulation approach facilitates the use of multi-state difference-in-difference designs in the face of highly heterogeneous legal structures. Our results suggest that live birth rates for teenage mothers fall by roughly 4.5 percent (or 0.1 percentage points) upon a 1 standard-deviation increase in the share of sexual activity among a given age group that triggers a felony for the elder party to the encounter. This response, however, is highly heterogeneous across ages and weakens notably in the case of the older teen years. Furthermore, we do not find strong results suggesting a further decline in birth rates upon increases in punishment severities

Investigating the Long-Term Impact of the Police Reform: A Case Study of Denmark

In 2006, Denmark implemented a police reform focusing on efficiency, fast response times, local police, and a unified organization across districts (Holmberg, 2019). The reform was necessary due to increased organized crime, rising crime across borders, technology advancements, and public demand for better service (Holmberg, 2014). However, trust and safety decreased in the coming years after the reform and slowly recovered over time, but local policing never recovered (Holmberg, 2014, 2019). The goal of this thesis is to assess the long-term effects of the new policies that came with the police reform in Denmark and to understand the impact of the police reform on dark figures, visibility, reporting, convictions, and trust. I will use a literature review as a method to investigate the Danish police reform and its effect. I will also use system dynamics to present a simulated model of the police reforms implementations and how it affects the dark figures, visibility, reporting, convictions, and trust, which provides important information through feedback loops. The literature review will also be used to find the data needed to model this system. In this study, I have found that an increase in competence, which affects the police detection rate and intervening rate directly, leads to increased convictions, detection, trust, and reports. And the increase in competence will reduce dark figures. With the removal of police stations, as an implementation of the reform, police visibility and police capacity will decrease. This reduces detection rates, convictions, and trust and will increase the dark figures. The increase in competence does show positive behavior but is unable to compensate for the effects that the loss of police stations has on visibility. The importance of visibility should be accounted for when implementing such policies. The study further discusses the model-based insights that can help create new policy implementations, to enhance the outcomes of the dark figures, visibility, reporting, convictions, and trust. The policies are tested by increasing or decreasing them percentwise, so eventually, new policy implementation can be based on the accessibility they have to change the different policy options found in the study.Masteroppgåve i systemdynamikkGEO-SD360INTL-KMDINTL-MNJMASV-SYSDINTL-JUSINTL-HFINTL-PSYKINTL-MEDINTL-S

Applying system dynamics modeling to foster a cause-and-effect perspective in dealing with behavioral distortions associated with a city's performance measurement programs

This paper aims to show how applying system dynamics methodology to performance management can provide a powerful modeling perspective enabling public sector organizations to prevent, detect, and counteract behavioral distortions associated with performance measurement. A dynamic performance management approach is able to support performance management system designers in outlining and implementing a consistent set of measures that can allow public sector decision-makers to pursue sustainable organizational learning and development. This perspective implies a major shift from a static to a dynamic picture of organizational processes and results. It means framing delays between causes and effects, feedback loops, and trade-offs in time and space associated with alternative scenarios. It also means understanding how different policy levers impact the accumulation and depletion of strategic resources over time, and determining how performance drivers affect end results. An exemplar application of this perspective is outlined in relation to municipal crime-control policies. Unintended behavioral consequences generated by the implementation of the CompStat program (New York Police Department) on reward and performance management systems are framed through the "lenses" of dynamic performance management

Residential Segregation in General Equilibrium

This paper studies the causes and consequences of racial segregation using a new general equilibrium model that treats neighborhood compositions as endogenous. The model is estimated using unusually detailed restricted Census microdata covering the entire San Francisco Bay Area, and in combination with a rich array of econometric estimates, serves as a powerful tool for carrying out counterfactual simulations that shed light on the causes and consequences of segregation. In terms of causes, and contrasting with prior research, our GE simulations indicate that equalizing income and education across race would be unlikely to result in significant reductions in racial segregation, as minority households would sort into newly formed minority neighborhoods. Indeed, among Asian and Hispanic households, segregation increases. In terms of consequences, this paper provides the first evidence that sorting on the basis of race gives rise to significant reductions in the consumption of local public goods by minority households and upper-income minority households in particular. These consumption effects are likely to have important intergenerational implications.Segregation, General Equilibrium, Endogenous Sorting, Urban Housing Market, Locational Equilibrium, Counterfactual Simulation, Discrete Choice

Criminal Defectors Lead to the Emergence of Cooperation in an Experimental, Adversarial Game

While the evolution of cooperation has been widely studied, little attention has been devoted to adversarial settings wherein one actor can directly harm another. Recent theoretical work addresses this issue, introducing an adversarial game in which the emergence of cooperation is heavily reliant on the presence of “Informants,” actors who defect at first-order by harming others, but who cooperate at second-order by punishing other defectors. We experimentally study this adversarial environment in the laboratory with human subjects to test whether Informants are indeed critical for the emergence of cooperation. We find in these experiments that, even more so than predicted by theory, Informants are crucial for the emergence and sustenance of a high cooperation state. A key lesson is that successfully reaching and maintaining a low defection society may require the cultivation of criminals who will also aid in the punishment of others