Crime,detection rate,and the police: A macro approach

Dutch criminality and its relation to the performance of police and justice have only recently been analyzed at the macro level (e.g., at the level of municipalities or the whole country). This type of approach is a useful supplement to analyses at the micro level (that of individuals), which are more common in Dutch empirical criminological research. The main results of such a macro approach are presented in this article. We conclude that the per capita numbers of youth, divorced people, and unemployed contribute significantly to the crime rate. The police strength and solving rates are important factors as well. Analysis of the production process of the police reveals that detecting one more case of driving under the influence is far more expensive than solving one more other crime or handling one more traffic accident. The results are combined to sketch a cost-benefit approach of different strategies in allocating more resources to the police. Allocating extra resources to solving more cases of vandalism gives the best cost-benefit ratio.     

Corporate Governance in Spain (with an Application of the Power Indices Approach)

This paper describes the governance system of Spanish listed firms in the early 1990's. Although the institutional setting of the Spanish Stock Exchanges differs little from other European national markets, we found important differences in several aspects of corporate governance. In particular, some of the standard mechanisms of control (e.g. boards and institutional shareholders) do not play an active role, whereas ownership is relatively concentrated. Moreover, power indices suggest that controlling blocs of large shareholders are very likely to form. We thus conclude that the ownership of shares is a pivotal mechanism in the governance of Spanish corporations.