Economic effects of residence laws on municipal police

Do Municipal Residency Laws Affect Labour Market Outcomes?

“…These effects are summarised in Table 1, and are compared with the empirical ® ndings of the existing residency law studies. In the earliest study, Getz (1979) found no effects, both studies of Rufolo (1985 and supported the non-traditional supply model, and Gonzalez et al (1991) found support for the disequilibrium/bureaucracy model. None of the studies found evidence for either the standard or the political demand model.…”

“…In both their studies, Hirsch-Rufolo (1985 found upwardsloping supply curves. 4 In addition, there is not unanimous evidence in favour of Niskanen-type bureaucratic behaviour.…”

“…In addition, residency laws decrease labour demand because of productivity increasesÐ police of® cers and ® re® ghters who live in the community are said to have a better knowledge of their community and are more available in case of emergencies. Hirsch and Rufolo (1985) pointed out that productivity increases will reduce labour demand under conditions of inelastic product demand and ® xed input usage.…”

Robbing Peter to pay Peter: The economics of local public residency requirements

“…We find that the set of conditions under which such regulations are likely to be in the general interest of residents of the cities that enact them is somewhat limited and that such regulations are less likely to be efficient when seen from a broader perspective. On the other hand, the regulations may be efficiency-enhancing, and the little empirical evidence that exists [6] is broadly consistent with this possibility, in that wages tend to be lower when there are residency requirements. In the absence of additional evidence then, we do not see a federal role regarding local public sector residency requirements.…”

“…In this case, the city as employer is able to weaken union power without acting directly to do so-it merely adds a new rule that has the effect of reducing wages. In a recent paper, Hirsch and Rufolo [6] present some empirical results that suggest that residency requirements lead to lower public sector wages than the absence of such requirements. One of Hirsch and Rufolo's interpretations is that the resident civil servants have some loyalty to their city and would be embarrassed to strike against their own friends and neighbors.…”