Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/208123 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-909
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
Despite the widespread debate about crime in Brazil and the alarming increase in homicides in recent years, few studies have analyzed or exposed evidence of the impact of public security spending on deterring violence in the country. This may be due to issues of endogeneity when estimating the relationship between security spending and the rate of homicides. The primary innovation presented in this paper is the use of a Bartik-inspired instrument to address the simultaneity issue. It measures government security spending in a two-stage least squares estimation, obtaining outcomes that are not only statistically but also practically significant. Results indicate that an increase of R$10 per capita in annual security expenditure leads to a decrease of 0.6 per 100,000 people in the number of homicides.
Subjects: 
Brazil
citizen security
crime
crime prevention
homicides
public expenditure
JEL: 
H59
H72
H76
K00
O12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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