George A. Chressanthis

Capital punishment and the deterrent effect revisited: Recent time-series econometric evidence

Abstract This article theoretically develops and empirically tests the relationship between criminal homicide crime rates in the United States for the period 1965–1985 and the deterrent effect of capital punishment by utilizing a recursive system of equations method. The analysis reveals that not only does a deterrent effect of capital punishment exist but also that changes in commonly selected law enforcement, judicial, demographic, and economic control variables are significant in a manner consistent with implications from general theoretical models of criminal behavior and within frameworks specifically dealing with murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.

The Determinants of Library Subscription Prices of the Top-Ranked Economics Journals: An Econometric Analysis

This article estimates the determinants of library prices for the top-ranked academic economics journals. The findings reveal that variations in library prices across these journals are consistent with hypotheses derived from demand and supply theory.

Accountability and U.S. Senate Elections: a Multivariate Analysis

fundamental characteristic of a representative democracy is j~ ~ accountability of our public officials to the voters for their actions (Pitkin 1967). We shall examine the extent to which U.S. senators are held accountable for their actions by the voters. This is an especially interesting question in view of their lengthy terms of office which minimize voter opportunity to exercise electoral sanctions against them. We shall also determine the types of factors that voters hold offlcials accountable for, such as their perceived performance in office or economic conditions in their state which may be influenced by federal economic policy. In the absence of a concern for accountability, voters may be influenced by factors unrelated to a senator’s own actions in office, such as national trends, the electoral context, or characteristics of the state itself.

Economic performance and U.S. Senate elections: A comment

This paper investigates the issue of economic performance and U.S. Senate elections analyzed by Bennett and Wiseman (1991) in a work published in this journal. Our study analyzes the electoral margins and election outcomes of U.S. Senate elections using state-level data involving only incumbents up for reelection in the 1976–1990 period (212 elections). The ordinary least squares and logit estimation results suggest that the effects of economic performance variables on incumbent senatorial elections are in general overshadowed by other factors known to be important in determining electoral margins and outcomes. In addition, the empirical results of the entire model are in general consistent with prior findings noted in the public choice and political science literature concerning the analysis of U.S. Senate elections. Therefore, we suggest that the findings raised in our study provide enough theoretical and empirical evidence to raise sufficient doubt regarding the robustness of the results suggested by Bennett and Wiseman (1991), and thus call upon other researchers to study further the relationship between economic performance and voting behavior in U.S. Senate elections.

Third party voting and the rational voter model: Empirical evidence from recent presidential elections*

ConclusionsThis paper attempted to demonstrate that a rational voter model as derived by Barzel and Silberberg (1973) can be used (with modifications) to explain third party voting in presidential elections. The empirical findings strongly suggest that the rational voter model is applicable in explaining third party voting. This conclusion likewise suggests that people who vote for third parties do so under similar motivations as people who vote for the major parties. Thus, people do not appear to regard votes for third parties as wasted votes or engage in the voting process in an irrational fashion. Lastly, votes for third parties represent the transmission of individual preferences by people who believe that their vote is important and that in the aggregate their signal may be interpreted as a signal to alter the direction of current policies as run by the major parties. Therefore, it does not appear from the evidence presented here that we should distinguish between or treat differently voting participation for the major parties versus the minor or third parties in presidential elections.

Criminal homicide and the elderly offender: A theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper theoretically develops and empirically tests factors that significantly affect criminal homicide arrest rate patterns in the United States for elderly criminals of the ages 65 years and older, from 1964 to 1985. The analysis reveais that changes in commonly selected economic, demographic, law enforcement, and punishment variables are significantly correlated with elderly criminal homicide arrest rates in a manner consistent with implications from general theoretical models of criminal behavior and with frameworks specifically dealing with criminal homicide.

Criminal behaviour and youth in the labour market: the case of the pernicious minimum wage

This paper empirically tests the relationship between variations in Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) index crime rates for teenagers 16–19 years of age with changes in the real minimum wage adjusted for industry coverage in the United States for the period 1960–1987. The analysis reveals that there exists a positive relationship between changes in the real minimum wage and teenage criminal homicide, forcible rape, and motor vehicle theft crime rates. These findings are consistent with the empirical evidence concerning the impacts of the minimum wage on youth labour market opportunities and also with the theoretical ad empirical evidence regarding the incidence of criminal activity made as an occupational choice decision formulated under risk and uncertainty. However, the results indicate no impact of the minimum wage on the other teenage UCR index crime rates as found by Hashimoto (1987). The evidence also suggests that variations in real criminal justice expenditures per capita reduce teenage propety crime ra...