This paper studies the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime in Spain. We estimate a crime equation using a panel dataset of Spanish provinces from 1993 to 1999 and applying the GMM-system estimator. Results indicate that lagged crime rate, clearance rate, urbanisation rate and...

Many regional governments in developed countries design programs to improve the competitiveness of local firms. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of public programs whose aim is to enhance the performance of firms located in Catalonia (Spain). We compare the performance of publicly...

Crime risk perception is known to be an important determinant of individuals? well being. Therefore, it is crucial, especially for governments, to understand its determinants and those (public) policies that can reduce it. Among those polices, resources devoted to police forces emerge as a key...

In this paper we analyze the temporal profile of crime in the urban context of Barcelona (Spain) for the period 2007-2011 using a unique micro dataset with police reported crime. Additionally, we assess the temporal effect that a leisure activity clearly bounded in time, namely the matches...

AbstractHow the degree of publicness of goods affect violent conflict? Based on the theoretical model in Esteban and Ray (2001) we find that the effect of the degree of publicness depends on the group size. When the group is small (large), the degree of publicness increases (decreases) the...

Bayesian model averaging (BMA) has been successfully applied in the empirical growth literature as a way to overcome the sensitivity of results to different model specifications. In this paper, we develop a BMA technique to analyze models that differ in the set of instruments, exogeneity...

In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of regional R&D public programs in Catalonia (Spain) with a two-stage procedure. Firstly, we compare the performance of publicly subsidised companies (treated) with that of similar, but unsubsidised companies (non-treated). We use the Propensity Score...

In addition to federal firearms legislation applicable to all firearms manufacturers operating in the United States, each of the 50 U.S. states has its own state, and sometimes additional municipal, firearms laws. Conceivably, the relative strictness or laxity of these laws influences location...

Given the actual debate, in many European countries, about the need for public administrations to raise their revenues through taxing the crime externalities generated by some private leisure activities, this article analyzes the effect of football matches on crime focusing both on property...

Human capital and, therefore, education have an impact on the society’s future welfare. In this paper we study the connection between the voters’ support to public education and the retirement concerns. We show that voters anticipate the positive effect of education on future pensions. The...