TY  - JOUR
AU  - Visser,Michael S.
AU  - Harbaugh,William T.
AU  - Mocan,Naci H.
TI  - An Experimental Test of Criminal Behavior Among Juveniles and Young Adults
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12507
PY  - 2006
Y2  - September 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12507
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12507.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael S. Visser
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
E-Mail: visser@sonoma.edu

William T. Harbaugh
Department of Economics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1285
Tel: 541/346-1244
Fax: 541/346-1243
E-Mail: harbaugh@uoregon.edu

Naci H. Mocan
Department of Economics
Louisiana State University
2119 Patrick F. Taylor Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-6306
Tel: 225/578-4570
E-Mail: mocan@lsu.edu
M3  - presented at "SI 2004 Childrens Workshop", August 3-4, 2004
AB  - We report results from economic experiments that provide a direct test of the hypothesis that criminal behavior responds rationally to changes in the possible rewards and in the probability and severity of punishment.  The experiments involve decisions that are best described as petty larceny, and are done using high school and college students who can anonymously take real money from each other.  We find that decisions about whether and how much to steal are, in general, rational and responsive to the variations in tradeoffs, and sometimes, though not always, to the overall availability of criminal opportunities.
ER  -