Summary of Week 3
This week, we looked at the effect of police on crime. The rational choice model predicts that having more police officers should reduce crime by increasing the probability of punishment, …
Course: Economics of Crime
Punishment severity and crime
Consider the following examples of real-life “get-tough-sentencing” policy reforms: 1) imposing jail terms for reckless driving instead of fines 2) imposing an automatic prison sentence for a major parole violation …
Why does more police reduce crime, again?
So far, we talked about the importance of obtaining regression results that have both causal interpretation and clear policy implication. Existing research evidence strongly suggests that police matters. When the …
Surveillance cameras and crime prevention
Under the rational choice model of crime, police reduces crime by increasing the expected probabilities of arrest and punishment. But having a larger police force is not the only way …
Difference-in-differences analysis
When we want to investigate the causal effect of the increased police presence on crime rates, it is usually more preferable to compare the changes in crime rates and police …
Validity issues
In our previous step, we encountered several examples of good identifying variations that enabled researchers to recover the causal effects of police on crime. The examples included highly unusual events …
Elasticity
Whether bigger police budget and more police officers cause crime to fall has been our main research question so far, but just as important is by how much crime falls. …
Summary of Week 2
The historic crime rise during the 1980s and an equally drastic crime decrease in the 1990s challenged and motivated many economists to look for explanations. We saw the set of …
Empirical analysis on the Effect of police on crime
That cities with more police may be systematically different from cities with fewer police is a classic example of a “self-selection” problem, which can make it very difficult to establish …
Can Additional Police Patrol Decrease Crime?
Police Presence and Crime Would our cities be safer if there are more police officers on the streets? Preventive patrol is one of the main functions of the police, and …
Panel data and fixed effect regression
Looking at a within-unit comparison instead of an across-unit comparison may be a better way to study a causal relationship of interest. For example, if we compare the size of …
Panel data and fixed effect regression exercise (Optional)
In this exercise, we will use data on crime rates and economic conditions in large U.S. counties in 1990 and 2000 to further investigate the relationship between crime and economic …
Regression analysis exercise (Optional)
[Note: The exercise presented in this step requires Microsoft Excel. If you already know how to run linear regression using a different computer program, you can just skim through the …
Multiple regression
If the positive relationship between larceny and inequality is in fact driven by another factor that is correlated with both larceny and inequality (e.g., the share of youth population), including …
Multiple regression exercise (Optional)
[Note: Again, the exercise presented in this step requires Microsoft Excel. If you already know how to run linear regression using a different computer program, you can just skim through …
How to write a cover letter
We take a look at everything you need to know about cover letters and how …
Everything you need to know about blended learning
We take a closer look at blended learning, exploring what it is, the different models, …
What is imposter syndrome, and how can you deal with it?
Most people have experienced feeling like an imposter at some point in their lives, so …
Gratitude and happiness: the importance of being grateful
Discover how the simple practise of gratitude can bring a host of different benefits to …