REGIONAL GAP IN SPENDING ON PUBLIC SECURITY AND CRIME IN BRAZIL

Theoretical literature indicates that public security spending matters to deter criminal behavior. Nevertheless, most empirical studies aiming to quantify the influence of public security spending on crime have largely been unable to establish a statistically significant relationship between these variables. In response to this, we introduced a novel proxy that measures the rationing of public security expenditures in each region. When testing it for crimes of homicide, robbery, and theft of vehicles through the GMM-sYs estimator, we found statistical evidence that its occurrence influences criminal behavior. We believe its inception contributes valuable evidence to the economic literature, shedding light on the debate surrounding the allocative efficiency of security spending resources.