Efeito do policiamento sobre a criminalidade: uma análise em painel para o municípios paulistas e estados brasileiros

This work had the aim of investigating the effect of policing over crime rates, analyzing both the municipalities of São Paulo as well the Brazilian states. The analysis of counties developed for four types of criminal practices classified as theft, burglary, robbery and vehicle theft and murders, while the second analysis of the Brazilian states was restricted to murders. The São Paulo counties crime data were extracted from the Bureau of Public Security of the State of São Paulo and the Brazilian state data has the Datasus/SIM as the main source. The model used is based on the economic theory of crime proposed by Becker (1968). The attempt of measuring the police effect over crime was carry on for 2 variables: the police force and the public security expenditure. Besides those variables, control variables were added to the regressions such as demographic and socio-economics, compiled from various sources. Models were estimated with fixed effects panel methodology, controlling for the simultaneity bias of the relationship between policing and crime in a two stages regression. The results, especially in the regressions for the Brazilian states, illustrate the positive bias of simultaneity between police and crime, once the firsts regressions, that did not control for this endogeneity, resulted in positive parameters, while all regressions in two stages resulted in negative coefficients for the police variable, which are significant when expenditure is used as public security measure. The São Paulo counties regressions, we found evidence that the existence of a municipality guard may have a reduction effect over thefts rate.

Lighting and violent crimes: evaluating the effect of an electrification policy in rural Brazil on violent crime reduction

This paper estimates the effect of lighting on violent crime reduction. We explore an electrification program (LUZ PARA TODOS or Light for All - LPT) adopted by the federal government to expand electrification to rural areas in all Brazilian municipalities in the 2000s as an exogenous source of variation in electrification expansion. Our instrumental variable results show a reduction in homicide rates (approximately five homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) on rural roads/urban streets when a municipality moved from no access to full coverage of electricity between 2000 and 2010. These findings are even more significant in the northern and northeastern regions of Brazil, where rates of electrification are lower than those of the rest of the country and, thus, where the program is concentrated. In the north (northeast), the number of violent deaths on the streets per 100,000 inhabitants decreased by 48.12 (13.43). This moved a municipality at the 99th percentile (75th) to the median (zero) of the crime distribution of municipalities. Finally, we do not find effects on violent deaths in households and at other locations. Because we use an IV strategy by exploring the LPT program eligibility criteria, we can interpret the results as the estimated impact of the program on those experiencing an increase in electricity coverage due to their program eligibility. Thus, the results represent local average treatment effects of lighting on homicides.

The effect of social security, demography and technology on retirement

This article investigates the causes in the reduction of labor force participation of the old. We argue that the changes in social security policy, in technology and in demography may account for most of the changes in retirement over the second part of the last century in the U.S. economy. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous retirement that embeds social security legislation. The model is able to match very closely the increase in the retirement rate of males aged 65 and older. It also quanti es the isolated impact on retirement and on the solvency of the social security system of the di¤erent factors. The model suggests that technological and demographic changes had a strong in uence on retirement, so that it would have increased signi cantly even if the social security rules had not changed. However, as the latter became much more generous in the past, changes in social security policy can account not only for a sizeable part of the expansion of retirement, but also for the most of the observed increase in the social security expenses as a share of GDP.

The effect of social security, demography and technology on retirement

This article investigates the causes in the reduction of labor force participation of the old. We argue that the changes in social security policy, in technology and in demography may account for most of the changes in retirement over the second part of the last century in the U.S. economy. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous retirement that embeds social security legislation. The model is able to match very closely the increase in the retirement rate of males aged 65 and older. It also quanti es the isolated impact on retirement and on the solvency of the social security system of the di¤erent factors. The model suggests that technological and demographic changes had a strong in uence on retirement, so that it would have increased signi cantly even if the social security rules had not changed. However, as the latter became much more generous in the past, changes in social security policy can account not only for a sizeable part of the expansion of retirement, but also for the most of the observed increase in the social security expenses as a share of GDP.