DP13424 Fighting Mobile Crime

Author(s):	Rosario Crinò, Giovanni Immordino, Salvatore Piccolo
Publication Date:	January 2019
Keyword(s):	crime, enforcement, Extradition, Fleeing, migration
JEL(s):	K14, K42
Programme Areas:	Public Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=13424

Two countries set their enforcement non-cooperatively to deter native and foreign individuals from committing crime in their territory. Crime is mobile, ex ante (migration) and ex post (fleeing), and criminals hiding abroad after having committed a crime in a country must be extradited back. When extradition is not too costly, countries overinvest in enforcement: insourcing foreign criminals is more costly than paying the extradition cost. When extradition is sufficiently costly, instead, a large enforcement may induce criminals to flee the country whose law they infringed. The fear of paying the extradition cost enables the countries coordinating on the efficient outcome.