Organised crime is unique within the underground economy. Unlike individual criminals, criminal organisations can substitute between a variety of inputs; chiefly labour and effort. This paper considers the effect of several popular anti-crime policies in such an environment. Using a profit...

Policies targeted at high-crime neighbourhoods may have unintended consequences in the presence of organised crime. Whilst they reduce the incentive to commit crime at the margin, those who still choose to join the criminal organisation are hardened criminals. Large organisations take advantage...

We study an individual's incentive to search for a job in the presence of random criminal opportunities. These opportunities extenuate moral hazard, as the individual sometimes commits crime rather than searching. Even when he searches, he applies less effort. We then revisit the design of...

This paper investigates the incentives that may induce workers to supplement income from unemployment benefits by engaging in temporary informal work. Using a dynamic model of job-search with moral hazard that incorporates a stylised schedule of benefit payments, we describe how informal sector...

We conduct a field experiment to assess whether alcohol-induced behavioural changes explain participants' recent history of violence. We find that being in a drinking environment, rather than intoxication, reduces participants' cognitive ability but increases their overconfidence. Those who...

Why do contests exist in settings where negotiation provides a costless alternative? I assess a new explanation: parties may be overconfident about their ability or optimistic about their chances of winning. For both parties in a contest, this hubris: (i) reduces the incentive to exit the...

Alcohol has long been known as the demon drink; an epithet owed to numerous social ills associated with it. Our lab-in-the-field experiment assesses the extent to which intoxication leads to changes in overconfidence or cognitive ability that are often linked to problematic behaviours. Results...