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Department of Economics Seminar with Professor Elena Stancanelli, Paris School of Economics Crime, Terrorism, and Policing
Professor Stancanelli is an applied micro-economist. Her research interests are in the area of applied household economics and time allocation. In particular, she has studied couples' allocation of time to household work and leisure time at retirement; the impact of different forms of income taxation on household time uses; and the labour supply of couples in which the wife outearns the husband; as well as the decision to work from home. Another stream of her research focuses on the behavioural impacts of conflict economics.
Abstract: Terrorist attacks lead to large increases in policing, which may be exploited to identify the effects of policing on crime. Earlier work concluded that terrorist attacks in London moved criminals to suburban areas but also increased hate crimes, using police administrative records. Here we use several years of French crime victimisation surveys and distinguish three broad sorts of crimes: personal aggressions, property crimes, and online bank frauds. Taking an event study approach, it is concluded that the 2015-16 Jihadist attacks in France, led to a significant and large increase in online bank frauds, while property crimes declined slightly but there was no significant effect on personal aggressions. However, we find a significant decline in the probability that the victims of personal aggressions reported it to the police. Moreover, among those who did go to the police to report and seek help, there is a significant decline in satisfaction with the way it was handled by the police. These findings are generally confirmed also using monthly and quarterly data. While public spending on education and health, not to mention the welfare state, are dramatically cut, military expenditure keeps increasing, but its effectiveness remains to be proven.