Private and Public Investment in R&D, Crime-Prevention Division

12 August 2006 at 11:41 am Leave a comment

| Peter Klein |

Further to Nicolai’s post on terrorists and cops: Government security officials have attenuated incentives not only for effort, but also for innovation. Just yesterday I read about the new Volvo S80, which has a special key fob that beeps when someone is hiding in the locked car (using a heartbeat sensor). Can you imagine the police coming up with that?

More generally, Bruce Benson offers compelling evidence, in his 1998 book To Serve and Protect, that the reduction in crime in the US over the last decade and a half owes little to improved police protection, but is due instead to increased investments in private security. (See also Benson’s short piece “Why Crime Declines.”)

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Classical Liberalism, Entrepreneurship, Institutions.

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