1993 Reports
Less Crime May Be Worse
The probability of being a crime victim, conditional on engaging in risky activity, acts like a tax on the risky activity. The higher the probability, the greater the loss to potential victims in consumer surplus. Higher conditional probabilities, however, do not always increase actual crime; sometimes the decrease in risky activity more than offsets the increase in conditional probability. Under these circumstances, less crime is associated with greater welfare loss.
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Files
- econ_9394_674.pdf application/pdf 493 KB Download File
More About This Work
- Academic Units
- Economics
- Publisher
- Department of Economics, Columbia University
- Series
- Department of Economics Discussion Papers, 674
- Published Here
- February 25, 2011
Notes
December 1993.