The Effect of Police on Crime: New Evidence from U.S. Cities, 1960-2010

NBER Working Paper No. 18815

Issued in February 2013, Revised in March 2013

NBER Program(s):Law and Economics, Labor Studies



We argue that the key impediment to accurate measurement of the effect of police on crime is not necessarily simultaneity bias, but bias due to mismeasurement of police. Using a new panel data set on crime in medium to large U.S. cities over 1960- 2010, we obtain measurement error corrected estimates of the police elasticity of the cost-weighted sum of crimes of roughly -0.5. The estimates confirm a controversial finding from the previous literature that police reduce violent crime more so than property crime.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w18815

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