Individual Protection Against Property Crime: Decomposing the Effects of Protection Observability

32 Pages Posted: 29 Dec 2005

See all articles by Louis Hotte

Louis Hotte

University of Ottawa

Tanguy Van Ypersele

National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) - Research Group in Quantitative Saving (GREQAM); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Date Written: October 2005

Abstract

We revisit the question of the efficiency of individual decisions to be protected against crime for the cases of both observable and unobservable protection. We obtain that observable protection is unambiguously associated with a negative externality and that at the individual level, it has a deterrence effect but no payoff reduction effect. Unobservable protection has a global deterrence effect and is associated with a private payoff reduction effect but no private deterrence effect. A decrease in the global crime payoff is detrimental to a victim if protection is observable, while it is beneficial with unobservable protection. While protection has a positive diversion effect when observable, it has the equivalent of a negative diversion effect when unobservable.

Keywords: Crime, private protection, efficiency

JEL Classification: D62, D82, K42

Suggested Citation

Hotte, Louis and Van Ypersele, Tanguy, Individual Protection Against Property Crime: Decomposing the Effects of Protection Observability (October 2005). CEPR Discussion Paper No. 5293, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=872757

Louis Hotte (Contact Author)

University of Ottawa ( email )

Department of Economics
55 Laurier E.
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5
Canada
+161 356 25800 1692 (Phone)
+161 356 25999 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://aix3.uottawa.ca/~lhott3/

Tanguy Van Ypersele

National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) - Research Group in Quantitative Saving (GREQAM) ( email )

Centre de la Vieille Charité
2 rue de la Charité
Marseille, 13002
France
+33 4 4293 5983 (Phone)
+33 4 4293 0968 (Fax)

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

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