Speaker : Ricard GIL (Johns Hopkins University)

Paper :“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”: Population, Crime, and the 2013 Government Shutdown

Where : Sorbonne Business School — 8 bis rue de la Croix Jarry, 75013.

Ricard Gil, PhD (Economics, University of Chicago), is associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School since 2011. His research topics focus on organizational economics, strategy and industrial organization. His publications as well as more details about his CV and research activity are available at: https://sites.google.com/site/ricardgilpage/ 

Authors : Ricard GIL (Johns Hopkins University) and Mario MACIS (Johns Hopkins University)

Abstract : The vast majority of the empirical literature on crime has focused on the effects of “supplyside” shocks such as the severity of laws and enforcement. In this paper we analyze the effects of a large and unexpected “demand-side” shock: the drop in daytime population in Washington, DC caused by the government shutdown of October 1-16, 2013. We derive implications from a simple theoretical model where criminals choose effort and allocate it across different criminal activities. We test these implications using the city of Baltimore as the comparison group, and employing difference-in-differences methods. Consistent with the model’s predictions (and inconsistent with alternative explanations), we find a 3% decline in crime in DC during the shutdown period, with the net effect resulting from a 9% decline during the day hours, and a 5% increase in crime during the evening and night hours, indicating reallocation of criminals’ effort induced by the shutdown.

Keywords: crime, population, labor supply

Download the paper