| 来源类型 | Working Paper
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| 规范类型 | 报告
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| DOI | 10.3386/w12641
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| 来源ID | Working Paper 12641
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| Crime and Punishment in the \"American Dream\" |
| Rafael Di Tella; Juan Dubra
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| 发表日期 | 2006-10-24
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| 出版年 | 2006
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| 语种 | 英语
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| 摘要 | We observe that countries where belief in the "American dream" (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know from previous work that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective is to study the joint determination of these three features (beliefs, punitiveness and economic system) in a way that replicates the observed empirical patterns. We present a model where beliefs determine the types of contracts that firms offer and whether workers exert effort. Some workers become criminals, depending on their luck in the labor market, the expected punishment, and an individual shock that we call "meanness". It is this meanness level that a penal system based on "retribution" tries to detect when deciding the severity of the punishment. We find that when initial beliefs differ, two equilibria can emerge out of identical fundamentals. In the "American" (as opposed to the "French") equilibrium, belief in the "American dream" is commonplace, workers exert effort, there are high powered contracts (and income is unequally distributed) and punishments are harsh. Economists who believe that deterrence (rather than retribution) shapes punishment can interpret the meanness parameter as pessimism about future economic opportunities and verify that two similar equilibria emerge. |
| 主题 | Macroeconomics
; Fiscal Policy
; Other
; Law and Economics
; Economic Systems
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| URL | https://www.nber.org/papers/w12641
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| 来源智库 | National Bureau of Economic Research (United States)
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| 引用统计 |
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| 资源类型 | 智库出版物
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| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/570303
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推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714 |
Rafael Di Tella,Juan Dubra. Crime and Punishment in the \"American Dream\". 2006.
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文件名：
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w12641.pdf
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格式：
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Adobe PDF
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