ECIN Replication Package for "How policing incentives affect crime, measurement, and justice"

In this paper we develop a model where the police choose between investigating and patrolling, while civilians choose between producing and stealing. We derive a truth table for the equilibrium numbers of criminals and producers, punished or not, that can holistically evaluate the effects of police performance incentives. To test the model, we conduct an experiment that varies how severely an officer is reprimanded for false punishments. We find that stronger reprimands do not change crime, increase civilian incomes, and decrease false positives. We also find that the clearance rate, a measure of performance used widely in econometric studies, suggests police performance is better when it is unambiguously worse.

本文构建了一类博弈模型，其中警务人员需在侦查与巡逻两种任务间进行抉择，平民群体则需在生产劳作与偷窃行为之间做出选择。我们推导得到了刻画均衡状态下罪犯与生产者（含受罚与未受罚两类）数量的真值表，该表可全面评估警务绩效激励的影响效应。为验证所提模型，我们开展了一项对照实验，通过调整警务人员因错判处罚所受的惩戒力度来设置实验变量。研究结果表明：更强的惩戒力度不会改变犯罪率，却能提升平民的收入水平，并降低误判处罚的发生概率。此外我们还发现，作为计量经济学研究中广泛使用的绩效衡量指标，破案率会呈现出与实际警务绩效相悖的现象：当警务表现明确更差时，破案率却显示警务绩效更佳。