IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v217y2022ics0165176522002294.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bonus for firearms seizures and police performance

Author

Listed:
  • Barros, Fernando
  • Delalibera, Bruno R.
  • Neto, Valdemar Pinho
  • Rodrigues, Victor

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of monetary incentives for firearms seizures on police performance and public safety outcomes. Using data from Brazilian states, we evaluate the impact of Pernambuco’s Pact for Life (Pacto pela Vida) Program, which offers a monetary bonus to police officers for firearms seizures and other outcomes. Our results indicate that the bonus has a causal and positive impact on the number of firearms seizures by police officers. Although we see a decrease in the number of crimes in Pernambuco, it is not possible to be attributed to the bonus policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Barros, Fernando & Delalibera, Bruno R. & Neto, Valdemar Pinho & Rodrigues, Victor, 2022. "Bonus for firearms seizures and police performance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:217:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522002294
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176522002294
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110681?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Khalil, Umair, 2017. "Do more guns lead to more crime? Understanding the role of illegal firearms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 342-361.
    2. Baicker, Katherine & Jacobson, Mireille, 2007. "Finders keepers: Forfeiture laws, policing incentives, and local budgets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2113-2136, December.
    3. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2017. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 117-141, October.
    4. Abhijit Banerjee & Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo & Daniel Keniston & Nina Singh, 2021. "Improving Police Performance in Rajasthan, India: Experimental Evidence on Incentives, Managerial Autonomy, and Training," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 36-66, February.
    5. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto, 2021. "Synthetic controls with imperfect pretreatment fit," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4), pages 1197-1221, November.
    6. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2017. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 117-141.
    7. Mark Duggan, 2001. "More Guns, More Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 1086-1114, October.
    8. Simon Burgess & Marisa Ratto, 2003. "The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(2), pages 285-300, Summer.
    9. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    10. Emily Owens & Bocar Ba, 2021. "The Economics of Policing and Public Safety," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 3-28, Fall.
    11. Firpo Sergio & Possebom Vitor, 2018. "Synthetic Control Method: Inference, Sensitivity Analysis and Confidence Sets," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-26, September.
    12. Alexandre Mas, 2006. "Pay, Reference Points, and Police Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 783-821.
    13. Mark Gius, 2020. "Using the synthetic control method to determine the effects of firearm seizure laws on state-level murder rates," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(21), pages 1754-1758, December.
    14. Lott, John R, Jr & Mustard, David B, 1997. "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-68, January.
    15. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    16. Simon Burgess & Marisa Ratto, 2003. "The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/071, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Souza, Danilo & Maciel, Mateus, 2024. "The role of public security reforms on violent crime dynamics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew Dustan & Stanislao Maldonado & Juan Manuel Hernandez-Agramonte, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale field experiments in Peru," Working Papers 136, Peruvian Economic Association.
    2. Andrew Dustan & Juan Manuel Hernandez-Agramonte & Stanislao Maldonado, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale," Natural Field Experiments 00664, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Dietrichson, Jens, 2013. "Coordination Incentives, Performance Measurement and Resource Allocation in Public Sector Organizations," Working Papers 2013:26, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    4. Antonio Sánchez Soliño, 2019. "Sustainability of Public Services: Is Outsourcing the Answer?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Michele Fioretti & Hongming Wang, 2023. "Performance Pay in Insurance Markets: Evidence from Medicare," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1128-1144, September.
    6. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2017. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 117-141, October.
    7. Stefano, Roberta di & Mellace, Giovanni, 2020. "The inclusive synthetic control method," Discussion Papers on Economics 14/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    8. Janne Tukiainen & Sebastian Blesse & Albrecht Bohne & Leonardo M. Giuffrida & Jan Jäässkeläinen & Ari Luukinen & Antti Sieppi, 2021. "What Are the Priorities of Bureaucrats? Evidence from Conjoint Experiments with Procurement Officials," EconPol Working Paper 63, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    9. Gabriel, Ricardo Duque & Pessoa, Ana Sofia, 2024. "Adopting the euro: A synthetic control approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    10. Singh, Prakarsh & Masters, William A., 2017. "Impact of caregiver incentives on child health: Evidence from an experiment with Anganwadi workers in India," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 219-231.
    11. Billy Ferguson & Brad Ross, 2020. "Assessing the Sensitivity of Synthetic Control Treatment Effect Estimates to Misspecification Error," Papers 2012.15367, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    12. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2ioennpq5m90holakkatq7cmms is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Pierre Koning & C.J. Heinrich, 2009. "Cream-skimming, parking and other intended and unintended effects of performance-based contracting in social welfare services," CPB Discussion Paper 134, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    14. Pier Basaglia & Sophie M. Behr & Moritz A. Drupp, 2023. "De-Fueling Externalities: How Tax Salience and Fuel Substitution Mediate Climate and Health Benefits," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2041, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Demirci, Murat, 2023. "Youth responses to political populism: Education abroad as a step toward emigration," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 653-673.
    16. Aleksandar Kešeljević & Rok Spruk, 2024. "Estimating the effects of Syrian civil war," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 66(2), pages 671-703, February.
    17. Ferman, Bruno, 2021. "Matching estimators with few treated and many control observations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 295-307.
    18. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2009. "Performance Pay as an Incentive for Lower Absence Rates in Britain," MPRA Paper 18238, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Gerald Marschke, 2010. "Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 183-208.
    20. Pier Basaglia & Sophie M. Behr & Moritz A. Drupp, 2023. "De-Fueling Externalities: Causal Effects of Fuel Taxation and Mediating Mechanisms for Reducing Climate and Pollution Costs," CESifo Working Paper Series 10508, CESifo.
    21. Helen Simpson, 2009. "Productivity In Public Services," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 250-276, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary incentives; Policing; Firearms seizures; Policy evaluation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:217:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522002294. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.