By W. Bentley Macleod and Roman Rivera

Abstract: Theories of crime in economics focus on the roles of deterrence and incapacitation in reducing criminal activity. In addition to deterrence, a growing body of empirical evidence has shown that both income support and employment subsidies can play a role in crime reduction. This paper extends the Becker-Ehrlich model to a standard labor supply model that includes the notion of a consumption need (Barzel and McDonald (1973)) highlights the role of substitution vs income effects when an individual chooses to engage in crime. Second, we show that whether the production of criminal activity is a substitute or a complement with the production of legitimate activity is central to the design of optimal policy. We find that both individual responsiveness to deterrence and optimal policy vary considerably with context, which is consistent with the large variation in the effect of deterrence on crime. Hence, optimal policy is a combination of deterrence, work subsidies and direct income transfers to the individual that vary with both income and location.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024. 48p.

By Jorge García Hombrados and Lindsey Novak  

A sizable share of marriages in several Asian and African countries are initiated by the man abducting the woman he wishes to wed. In this paper, we use quantitative and qualitative methods to characterize the practice of abduction marriage in Ethiopia. We first present the results from in-depth qualitative surveys with community leaders and abducted women in the Gambella region of Ethiopia to gain a deeper understanding of how the practice functions in these communities. These interviews suggest that abduction is typically used to overcome the refusal of the woman’s family. Second, we use Demographic and Health Survey along with ethnographic data to characterize women and ethnic groups affected by this practice in Ethiopia. Finally, we empirically examine the central hypothesis about the persistence of this practice and find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that men often use abduction to improve bargaining power in marriage negotiations and reduce the size of the bride price payment. Specifically, we demonstrate that droughts—a proxy for income shocks in this setting— increase the probability of abduction marriage only for women from ethnic groups that traditionally exchange a bride price

Bonn:  IZA – Institute of Labor Economics . 2024. 50p.

By Michael McLaggan

Prominent throughout the world, illicit financial flows (IFFs) not only undermine the ability of states to collect revenue, but they also pose challenges to governance and the rule of law and provide avenues for the funding of further illicit activity. Although a global occurrence, IFFs may manifest differently at the regional level, making a uniform approach difficult. This calls for a model that is more inclusive of different types of flows than traditional understandings of IFFs, which tend to focus on financial flows within the formal system. In regions such as East and southern Africa, where informality is much higher than in the developed nations of the ‘global north’, the greater focus on formal systems does not find the same degree of applicability. This is not to downplay the necessity of observing and countering formal financial flows of an illicit nature but rather to emphasise the need to pay greater attention to informal and trade flows, which are prolific in less developed regions. This paper draws on extensive research by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) – in particular, the Observatory of Illicit Economies in East and Southern Africa – in addition to research by other international organisations, to analyse whether the ‘IFFs pyramid’ proposed by the GI-TOC (Reitano, 2022) is applicable to and useful for researchers seeking to understanding illicit financial flows in various settings around the world but especially in regions where greater levels of informality exists, such as East and southern Africa. The paper finds that the pervasive informality of markets in the East and southern African region, and their abuse by criminal actors, means that greater attention to IFFs is necessary in this sphere. Common also is the use of illicitly acquired, or otherwise illicitly traded commodities, in barter (that is, goods for goods) markets. Identified as particularly relevant is the pernicious influence of state-embedded actors, who often play substantial roles in the facilitation of IFFs and act as obstacles to policies to address them. Furthermore, vested interests of criminal actors in keeping certain industries and markets informal serve as barriers to formalisation and highlight the greater need to pay attention to informal financial flows especially. The due consideration to trade and informal flows is what makes the IFFs pyramid a useful model for understanding these flows in both global and regional settings. At the very least, the pyramid model highlights the need for holistic approaches and policy reform when considering IFFs in less developed regions.  

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. 2024, 33pg