Demand for factors of production in municipal police departments

Abstract

As the fiscal crises of municipalities deepen, the search for ways to reduce the cost of providing municipal services increases. In the production of police service, the use of civilians to handle administrative jobs has mcrease&( In this regard, the studies of demand for productive factors in municipal police departments becomes interesting. Several attempts have been made to estimate input demands or expenditure functions for police departments. Carr-Hill and Stern [5], Chapman et al. 161, Vatey and Philips (231, Pbifips and Votey (201, Greenwood and Wadyeki 1121, Ohls and Wales [18], and Ehrlich [ll] all have estimated the demand for factors as part of a simultaneous equation system. Most of these studies were not interested in the factor demands.’ They were only necessary to estimate correctly the supply of offense equations. Same of the equations are no1 carefully specified and justified. There are however, some single equation studies. Hirsch [15], Borcherding and Deacon [4], Bergstrom and Goodman [l], and McDougall [I 61 all estimated police demand equations. All the above studies use lhe Cobb-Douglas or the CES functional form -functional forms that are too restrictive. In particular, the assumptions of constant elasticity of substitution between inputs is unacceptable when there are more than two inputs. Second, these studies have created police production as nonjoint even though police departments are considered as multiproduct firms producing a variety of outputs. Philips [19] has employed the Constant Difference Elasticity production function to estimate factor demands in municipal police departments in