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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Law and economics

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Spillover Effects In Police Use Of Force, Justin E. Holz, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba Dec 2019

Spillover Effects In Police Use Of Force, Justin E. Holz, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba

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We study the link between officer injuries-on-duty and the force-use of their peers using a network of officers who, through a random lottery, began the police academy together. We find that peer injuries-on-duty increase the probability of using force by 7%. The effect is concentrated in a narrow time window near the event and is not associated with significantly lower injury risk to the officer. Complaints of improper searches and failure to provide service also increase after peer injuries, suggesting that the increase in force might be driven by heightened risk aversion.


In-Group Bias And The Police: Evidence From Award Nominations, Nayoung Rim, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba Oct 2019

In-Group Bias And The Police: Evidence From Award Nominations, Nayoung Rim, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba

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This paper examines the impact of in-group bias on the internal dynamics of a police department. Prior studies have documented racial bias in policing, but little is known about bias against officers due to lack of available data. We construct a novel panel dataset of Chicago Police Department officers, with detailed information on officer characteristics and work productivity. Exploiting quasi-random variation in supervisor assignment, we find that white supervisors are less likely to nominate black officers than white or Hispanic officers. We find weaker evidence that male supervisors are less likely to nominate female officers than male officers. We explore …


On The Disparate Treatment Of Business And Personal Salt Payments, Michael S. Knoll Jan 2018

On The Disparate Treatment Of Business And Personal Salt Payments, Michael S. Knoll

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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1, would eliminate the federal income tax deduction for nonbusiness state and local taxes while maintaining the deduction for business state and local taxes. That disparate treatment has generated a storm of negative commentary. In this short essay, I consider whether the federal tax law should allow a deduction for business state and local taxes assuming that there is no deduction for nonbusiness state and local taxes. I argue that investors and businesses, including pass-through businesses, should be allowed to deduct state and local property and sales taxes, but not general income taxes.


Beyond Coase: Emerging Technologies And Property Theory, Christopher S. Yoo Jun 2012

Beyond Coase: Emerging Technologies And Property Theory, Christopher S. Yoo

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In addition to prompting the development of the Coase Theorem, Ronald Coase’s landmark 1959 article on the Federal Communications Commission touched off a revolution in spectrum policy. Although one of Coase’s proposed reforms (that spectrum should be allocated through markets) has now become the conventional wisdom, his other principal recommendation (that governments stop dedicating portions of the spectrum to particular uses) has yet to be fully embraced. Drawing on spectrum as well as Internet traffic and electric power as examples, this Article argues that emerging technologies often reflect qualities that make defining property rights particularly difficult. These include the cumulative …


The Social Value Of Mortality Risk Reduction: Vsl Vs. The Social Welfare Function Approach, Matthew D. Adler, James K. Hammitt, Nicholas Treich Mar 2012

The Social Value Of Mortality Risk Reduction: Vsl Vs. The Social Welfare Function Approach, Matthew D. Adler, James K. Hammitt, Nicholas Treich

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We examine how different welfarist frameworks evaluate the social value of mortality risk-reduction. These frameworks include classical, distributively unweighted cost-benefit analysis—i.e., the “value per statistical life” (VSL) approach—and three benchmark social welfare functions (SWF): a utilitarian SWF, an ex ante prioritarian SWF, and an ex post prioritarian SWF. We examine the conditions on individual utility and on the SWF under which these frameworks display the following five properties: i) wealth sensitivity, ii) sensitivity to baseline risk, iii) equal value of risk reduction, iv) preference for risk equity, and v) catastrophe aversion. We show that the particular manner in which VSL …