Spengler, Hannes - DIW Berlin (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung) - 2006
According to the economic theory of crime, a rise in expected punishment (the product of probability and severity of … punishment) results in a reduction of crime due to deterrence. What appears to be a simple and straightforward hypotheses turns … out to be a demanding task for empirical examination because "crime" is composed of many different offence categories and …