We provide evidence for a beneficial welfare impact of a crime policy that is targeted at strenghtening victim precaution. Regulation made application of the electronic engine immobilizer, a simple and low-cost anti-theft device, mandatory for all new cars sold within the European Union as of...

We provide evidence that perceptions of crime risk are severely biased for many years after a move to a new neighborhood. Based on four successive waves of a large crime survey, matched with administrative records on household relocations, we find that the longer an individual lives in a...

Abstract: Field-experimental studies have shown that people litter more in more littered environments.Inspired by these findings, many cities around the world have adopted policies to quickly remove litter. While such policies may avoid that people follow the bad example of litterers, they may...

Making the length of a prison sentence conditional on an individual’s offense history is shown to be a powerful way of preventing crime. Under a law adopted in the Netherlands in 2001, prolific offenders could be sentenced to a prison term that was some ten times longer than usual. We exploit...

This paper examines the effect of a change in drugs policy on the age of onset of<br/>cannabis use. We use 2012 survey data from the Czech Republic where in 2010 a<br/>law was introduced decriminalizing personal possession of small quantities of several illicit drugs, including cannabis. We estimate the...

In almost all countries supply, distribution and use of cannabis is prohibited. Nevertheless, cannabis is the most popular illicit drug. Prohibition does not seem to work. The debate on legalization of cannabis is often emotional with strong views of both proponents and opponents but ignorance...

Since the mid-1960's the Netherlands has had an immigration surplus, mainly because of manpower recruitment from Turkey and Morocco and immigration from the former Dutch colony of Surinam.Immigrants have a weak labor market position, which is related to their educational level and language...

Slovakia is one of the Central European countries in transformation from a centralised command system to a decentralised market economy. Along with the transition of the economy came unemployment. Other than before workers who lost their job did not find a new job immediately. This paper studies...

This paper analyzes the determinants of lay-offs, job-to-job movements and total separations with a unique data set that combines information on individual firms and their workers. We are in particular interested in whether the lay-off policy of firms can explain the relatively high level of...