Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
空间保护溢出与犯罪和警务的均衡
Spatial Protection Spillovers and the Equilibrium of Crime and Policing
摘要
Spatial heterogeneity in crime suggests that location is a key choice variable in criminal behavior and police allocation. To capture this, we develop a topological model in which criminals and the police interact strategically across space. The key departure from the existing literature is that distance matters: the coverage radius of a police unit generates spatial spillovers, so a location can receive protection from nearby patrols. This is in sharp contrast with discrete spatial models, where each discrete partition is isolated from its surroundings, biasing the equilibrium police allocation. We analytically characterize this bias and, more generally, demonstrate how spillovers affect the equilibrium police allocation. In particular, as spillovers increase: (i) more (fewer) units are allocated at local maxima (minima) of crime; (ii) the location where units are more concentrated shifts toward the steepest side of the crime distribution; and (iii) the entropy of the police spatial density decreases. Jointly, our results point to the essential role of spatial spillovers in the equilibrium determination of crime and police allocation.
中文摘要
犯罪的空间异质性表明，地点是犯罪行为与警力配置中的关键选择变量。为刻画这一点，我们构建了一个拓扑模型，其中犯罪分子与警察在空间上策略性互动。与现有文献的关键区别在于距离至关重要：警察单位的覆盖半径会产生空间溢出效应，因此一个地点可以从附近巡逻中获得保护。这与离散空间模型形成鲜明对比，在离散空间模型中，每个离散分区与其周围环境相互隔离，从而使均衡警力配置产生偏误。我们解析地刻画了这种偏误，并更一般地证明了溢出效应如何影响均衡警力配置。特别地，随着溢出效应增强：(i) 更多（更少）单位被配置在犯罪的局部极大值（极小值）处；(ii) 单位更为集中的地点向犯罪分布最陡峭的一侧转移；(iii) 警察空间密度的熵下降。综合来看，我们的结果指向空间溢出效应在犯罪与警力配置的均衡决定中的根本作用。