The use of a taser by law enforcement can substitute for either a gun (a more-violent technology) or a mildly-violent technology (such as pepper spray or hands-on tactics). Which is used affects both the severity of harm when used and the amount of resistance, which affects how often it must be used. Thus, does the adoption of a lessviolent technology lead to more or less violence? This questio...

Crime and the Labour Market: Evidence from a Survey of Inmates In this paper data from a survey of 1,771 inmates conducted in 31 German prisons provide microeconometric evidence on the relationship between individual anticipated labour market opportunities and the perceived probability of future recidivism. Results show that inmates with poor labour market prospects expect a significantly highe...

This paper examines the optimal use of criminal solicitation as a law enforcement strategy. The benefits are greater deterrence of crime (due to the greater likelihood of apprehension), and the savings in social harm as some offenders are diverted away from committing actual crimes through solicitation. The costs are the expense of hiring undercover cops and the greater likelihood of punishment...

We examine the optimal disruption of dark (covert and illegal) networks. Of central importance is that an interventionist will generally have incomplete information about the dark network’s architecture. We derive the optimal disruption strategy in a stylized model of dark network intervention with incomplete information and show how it combines features of two types of disruption considered in...

In excitable tissues such as nerve fibers and muscles, distribution of alkali metal ions is remarkably different inside and outside the cell membrane. It is believed that potassium distribution difference causes polarization of membrane and generates resting potential, and that the rapid penetration of sodium against membrane generates action potential. Sodium existing in a high concentration o...

Supporting hot-swappable components allows components to be replaced even while they may be in active use. This can allow live upgrades to running systems, more adaptable software that can change its behaviour at run-time by swapping components, and a simpler software structure by allowing distinct policy and implementation options to be implemented in separate components (rather than as a sing...

Partially Identified Treatment Effects under Imperfect Compliance: The Case of Domestic Violence During the 1980s a set of randomized experiments were carried out to determine the usefulness of a mandatory arrest policy for domestic assault offenders. The first of these was the Minneapolis Domestic Violence experiment (MDVE), which was carried out in 1981. This paper re-examines the data from t...

Social sanctions may be a strong deterrent of crime. This paper presents a formal model that relates crime and social sanction to social interaction density. We empirically test the theoretical predictions using a provincial level panel dataset on different crimes in Italy between 1996 and 2003. We exploit detailed demographic and geo-morphological information to develop exogenous measures of s...

Antitrust authorities have set up leniency programs for cartel members that denounce their collusive agreements. These programs help prosecute participants and can thereby deter collusion. We compare the impact of reduced fines and positive rewards and argue that rewarding individuals, including firm employees, can deter collusion in a more effective way. We discuss possible adverse effects of ...

Marijuana is the most common illicit drug with vocal advocates for legalization. Among other things, legalization would increase access and remove the stigma of illegal behavior. Our model of use disentangles the role of access from preferences and shows that selection into access is not random. We …nd that non-selection-corrected demand estimates are biased resulting in incorrect policy conclu...