On the deterrent effect of individual versus collective liability in criminal organizations

Our paper addresses the question of the deterrent effect of a monetary sanction associated to a collective rather than an individual liability, when crimes are realized within a hierarchical gang (defined as a criminal organization where the leader is a sleeping partner, and several agents are active partners in the illegal or criminal activity). We develop a model where the active gang members face contradictory incentives to commit a crime. On the one hand, public authorities try to deter each gang member by imposing sanctions; on the second, the leader of the gang try to keep his members enough active in the gang by threatening them of private sanctions. We show that sanctions based on individual liability are inefficient to deter gang’s members since the leader overreacts on the public sanctions. In contrast, we show that a regime of collective liability, allowing the judge to sanction the sleeping partner even if he hasn’t realized any crime himself, can reach enough deterrence of the members of the gang

On the deterrent effect of individual versus collective liability in criminal organizations

Our paper addresses the question of the deterrent effect of a monetary sanction associated to a collective rather than an individual liability, when crimes are realized within a hierarchical gang (defined as a criminal organization where the leader is a sleeping partner, and several agents are active partners in the illegal or criminal activity). We develop a model where the active gang members face contradictory incentives to commit a crime. On the one hand, public authorities try to deter each gang member by imposing sanctions; on the second, the leader of the gang try to keep his members enough active in the gang by threatening them of private sanctions. We show that sanctions based on individual liability are inefficient to deter gang’s members since the leader overreacts on the public sanctions. In contrast, we show that a regime of collective liability, allowing the judge to sanction the sleeping partner even if he hasn’t realized any crime himself, can reach enough deterrence of the members of the gang

Analyse économique de la dimension géographique de la pauvreté [Une application à la région lorraine]

Hauret Laetitia. Analyse économique de la dimension géographique de la pauvreté [Une application à la région lorraine]. In: Recherches et Prévisions, n°79, 2005. pp. 110-117

Juvenile delinquency : affiliation to a gang and repeated offender's behaviour

Nous intégrons au modèle traditionnel de la délinquance une spécificité de la délinquance juvénile à savoir le fait que, généralement, les mineurs délinquants agissent dans le cadre de bandes. Ce faisant nous rompons avec le modèle beckérien fondé sur l’hypothèse que les délinquants sont des individus isolés, pour nous inscrire dans la lignée des théories intégratives. Plus précisément, l’objectif de notre travail est d’étudier l’influence des bandes sur la décision des adolescents de commettre une infraction et, le cas échéant, de récidiver. A cette fin, nous recourons à une analyse théorique et empirique. Sur le plan théorique, notre recherche répond à deux objectifs. Le premier objectif vise à expliquer le résultat des sociologues selon lequel le fait d’être affilié à une bande incite les adolescents à commettre des infractions. Pour cela, nous utilisons des modèles économiques, non utilisés en économie de la délinquance, et nous démontrons, à l’aide d’un modèle original, que dans certains cas, une sanction pénale individuelle peut être inefficace pour détourner un membre de bande de la délinquance. Le second objectif vise à étudier si l’affiliation à une bande peut jouer sur le terme de la carrière délinquante. Sur le plan empirique, nous cherchons à vérifier la validité de nos prédictions théoriques en utilisant une base de données originales retraçant le parcours judiciaire de 535 mineurs délinquants. Nos résultats soulignent le caractère inefficace des politiques répressives dans le contexte de bandes, ce qui nous incite à préconiser d’autres formes de politiques pour lutter contre la délinquance juvénile.We insert into the economic standard model of crime a particularity of juvenile delinquency: the fact that in general juvenile offenders act as part of gangs. In this, we break with Becker’s model, founded on the hypothesis that offenders are isolated, in order to set our research into the general framework of integrative theories. More precisely, the objective of our research is to study the influence of gangs on the decision of teenagers to commit and to repeat an offence. For that, we use a theoretical and an empirical analysis. Two main topics are covered in our theoretical section. The first objective is to explain the sociologists’ result that juvenile gangs’ members are more involved in delinquency. In this part, we use economic models, not yet used in economic theory of crime, and we show, with an original contribution that, in certain cases, that sanctions based on individual liability are inefficient to deter gang’s members from delinquency. The second aim is to analyze whether the affiliation to a gang can have an effect on the career of delinquents. In the empirical section, we test the validity of our theoretical predictions by using an original database covering the judicial folder of 535 juvenile delinquents. Our results show the inefficacity of repressive policies in the context of gangs and encourage us to advise public authorities to apply other forms of policies to fight juvenile delinquency and juvenile relapse

Digitally transformed home office impacts on job satisfaction, job stress and job productivity. COVID-19 findings

International audienceIn these times of successive lockdown periods due to the health crisis induced by COVID-19, this paper investigates how the usages of collaborative and communication digital tools (groupware, workflow, instant messaging and web conference) are related to the evolution of teleworkers' subjective well-being (job satisfaction, job stress) and job productivity comparing during and before the first lockdown in spring 2020. Using a sample of 438 employees working for firms located in Luxembourg, this analysis enables, first, to highlight different profiles of teleworkers regarding the evolution of usages of these tools during the lockdown compared to before and the frequency of use during. Second, the analysis highlights that these profiles are linked to the evolution of job satisfaction, job stress and job productivity. Our main results show that (1) the profile that generates an increase in job productivity is the one with a combined mastered daily or weekly use of all of the four studied digital tools but at the expense of job satisfaction. On the contrary, (2) the use of the four digital tools both before and during the lockdown, associated with an increase in the frequency of use, appears to generate too much information flow to deal with and teleworkers may suffer from information overload that increases their stress and reduces their job satisfaction and job productivity. (3) The habit of using the four tools on a daily basis before the lockdown appears to protect teleworkers from most of the adverse effects, except for an increase in their job stress. Our results have theoretical and managerial implications for the future of the digitally transformed home office. Copyright: © 2022 Martin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Teleworkers’ digital up-skilling: Evidence from the spring 2020 lockdown

International audienceDuring the spring 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, the proportion of employees who worked from home increased sharply, which increased the use of digital tools. In this context, we study how teleworkers improved their digital skills. More specifically, we ask whether the lockdown was an opportunity for teleworkers to increase their digital skills and whether some subgroups with traditionally lower digital skills (women, older workers, and less educated) have benefited from a catch-up effect. Using a sample of 438 employees working for firms located in Luxembourg, our empirical analysis shows, first, that three out of ten teleworkers felt that they improved their digital skills during the lockdown and, second, that the lockdown helped to reduce the gender and age digital skill gap but broaden the educational digital skill gap. Third, training and more frequent use of many digital tools during the lockdown are positively related to the digital upskilling feeling, but not for all subgroups of teleworkers studied. Finally, the feeling of digital upskilling is inverted U-shaped in the number of digital tools discovered during the lockdown, but not for all subgroups of teleworkers studied

On the deterrent effect of individual versus collective liability in criminal organizations

Our paper addresses the question of the deterrent effect of a monetary sanction associated to a collective rather than an individual liability, when crimes are realized within a hierarchical gang (defined as a criminal organization where the leader is a sleeping partner, and several agents are active partners in the illegal or criminal activity). We develop a model where the active gang members face contradictory incentives to commit a crime. On the one hand, public authorities try to deter each gang member by imposing sanctions; on the second, the leader of the gang try to keep his members enough active in the gang by threatening them of private sanctions. We show that sanctions based on individual liability are inefficient to deter gang’s members since the leader overreacts on the public sanctions. In contrast, we show that a regime of collective liability, allowing the judge to sanction the sleeping partner even if he hasn’t realized any crime himself, can reach enough deterrence of the members of the gang.Gangs deterrence, individual and collective liability, optimal law enforcement

How do HRM practices improve employee satisfaction?

International audienceUsing employer-employee data, this article studies the relationships between the bundle of human resource management (HRM) practices and job satisfaction. By simultaneously integrating employee HRM exposure and HRM perception, which remains scarce in the literature, the authors find that a high HRM exposure is not sufficient to improve job satisfaction when employee HRM perception is taken into account. Moreover, the study highlights that differences in the level of employee HRM perception, contrary to the level of exposure, influence the way employees react to their personal, job and workplace characteristics. The results suggest a role for managers to strengthen employee positive HRM perception to improve job satisfaction