Strategical interactions on municipal public safety spending with correlated private information

Publication date: Available online 10 March 2017Source: Regional Science and Urban EconomicsAuthor(s): Chao Yang, Lung-fei LeeAbstractWe investigate interactions of public safety spending among spatially related local jurisdictions in a framework of simultaneous move game both theoretically and empirically. Incorporating the mobility of residents and externality of public safety services, it is found that the public safety spending of a municipal government can be negatively related to those of its neighbors, which is empirically supported by a general interaction model with correlated private information using the data on municipalities in North Carolina. In this case, strategic interactions induce a reduction of municipal public safety spending by 7.2404% on average and a local government will reduce its own spending by 0.0927 million dollars when one of its neighbors is expected to increase public safety spending by 1 million dollars, showing strong “free-riding” effects.
Source: Regional Science and Urban Economics - Category: Science Source Type: research