Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis study estimates the association between sanctuary policies and crime in the United States by exploiting an increase in state and local sanctuary policy adoption in 2014. Counties that adopted sanctuary policies in 2014 experienced a decrease of 17.9 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants per year (0.02 percentage points) compared to counties that continued to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), with the relationship driven by decreases in robberies and assaults. This result implies that sanctuary policies avoid $101 million per year in crime costs. Conversely, ICE cooperation increases crime costs in local communities by $3.28 billion per year.

AbstractThe structure of stated preference questions to value consumption from public infrastructure can vary depending on the conditions of consumption facing the household. Specifically, a good could be offered as a quasi-public or quasi-private good. This paper demonstrates how consumption from two alternative electricity allocation options can be valued using two types of stated preference questions. Since surveyed households were asked two types of questions, the authors develop a joint model of a contingent valuation question and a contingent quantity behavior response that allows for correlation in error terms across models. In their application to two villages in Rwanda, the authors find higher WTP for electricity consumed as a quasi-private good rather than a quasi-public good, with four hours of electricity per day, only in the evening. They also find correlation in the error terms across the two models, suggesting that their joint estimator is more efficient than estimating each model individually.

AbstractMost resource management studies model the resource in isolation from the rest of the economy of which it is part. In many developing economies, agents participate in multiple activities, creating linkages between resource exploitation and other sectors (e.g., agriculture). In Northern Honduran fishing communities, households allocate effort to fishing according to the opportunity cost of their time, which depends on returns in other activities. We develop a model that demonstrates how market structure impacts fishery exploitation. Agricultural price increases have an ambiguous effect on labor allocated to fishing because they reduce the value of labor in fishing but increase the demand for fish via an income effect. The size and magnitude of impacts depend strongly on the tradability of inputs and outputs in the community economy. The findings point to a need to account for economic linkages and market structure when designing policies to reduce pressure on a natural resource.