Panic on the streets of London
Subtitle: police, crime and the July 2005 terror attacks
By: Mirko  Draca,  Steve  Machin and Robert  Witt.
Contributors: Machin, Stephen.; Witt, Robert.; London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance.
Series: CEP discussion paper -- no. 852
Publisher: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: In this paper we study the causal impact of police on crime by looking at what happened to crime before and after the terror attacks that hit central London in July 2005. The attacks resulted in a large redeployment of police officers to central London boroughs as compared to outer London - in fact, police deployment in central London increased by over 30 percent in the six weeks following the July 7 bombings. During this time crime fell significantly in central relative to outer London. Study of the timing of the crime reductions and their magnitude, the types of crime which were more likely to be affected and a series of robustness tests looking at possible biases all make us confident that our research approach identifies a causal impact of police on crime. Implementing an instrumental variable approach shows an elasticity of crime with respect to police approximately -0.3, so that a 10 percent increase in police activity reduces crime by around 3 percent.
Notes: Title from PDF file (viewed on Oct. 10, 2008).

"February 2008."

Includes bibliographical references.

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