Apr 13, 2026 · 54 min · 12 segments
Dr. Benjamin Hansen is the W.E. Minor Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon. He is also the head of the Economics Department. He Graduated from Birmingham Young University in 2004 with…
Benjamin HansenGuest
Ken W. GoodHost
yeah i mean every when people kind of come into the class they're like so we're going to talk about white collar crime and you know i i do a little bit but like um the economics of crime it really goes back to a very influential con a very influential economist named gary becker so gary becker he had this kind of way of taking things that economists thought they couldn't study And then he's like, no, no, no.
I can actually write down a model, and we can see that thing that you thought wasn't suitable for economic analysis is completely suitable for economists to go out there and study.
So he wrote this paper about punishment in the 1960s, where it was like an economic analysis of crime.
And in there, before he had come about, basically economists were like, look, committing a crime, it's an irrational thing.
And he wrote down a model of economic behavior, assuming full rationality of individuals, no different than people deciding, hey, are you going to work today? What are you going to buy? What are you going to eat? What are you going to do? And in those options, one of the options is, well, you could commit crime instead of working.
And he showed, look, if there are economic returns to crime that are, you know, there's some sort of consumptive value that comes out of it, then some people, in the right circumstances, will choose to engage in those unlawful behaviors because there's a return on it.
And that return could just be that they enjoy it, or it could actually be money, right? And they will choose not to do it, but their choices will depend upon the probability they get caught, and then also how much they are fined if they are caught.
And ever since then, economists are like, you know what? That means we can study this and we can try to test some of those base assumptions.
You know, we can test the extent to which people actually respond to the probability of getting caught or, you know, which might be based upon the number of police.
DNA databases, it can be based upon automated cameras, or now there's now there's these new tech companies, the flock cameras, which have these automated license plate readers, right? So it can be based upon any of these things.
One of the ways we talk or I talk about crime is with law enforcement, especially is, you know, there's a certain percentage of crimes that's being committed by, you know, the same group of people.
I think they describe it as the city within the city, the people living in the crime city.
And then you've got this gray area around the crime city and the law and order city.
And I think the model you're talking about really influences the gray area, the city in between.
But how does the model or the thought of that, I mean, how do we gauge crime from the standpoint of when we've got organized crime, gangs, and career criminals?
yeah i mean every when people kind of come into the class they're like so we're going to talk about white collar crime and you know i i do a little bit but like um the economics of crime it really goes back to a very influential con a very influential economist named gary becker so gary becker he had this kind of way of taking things that economists thought they couldn't study And then he's like, no, no, no.
I can actually write down a model, and we can see that thing that you thought wasn't suitable for economic analysis is completely suitable for economists to go out there and study.
So he wrote this paper about punishment in the 1960s, where it was like an economic analysis of crime.
And in there, before he had come about, basically economists were like, look, committing a crime, it's an irrational thing.
And he wrote down a model of economic behavior, assuming full rationality of individuals, no different than people deciding, hey, are you going to work today? What are you going to buy? What are you going to eat? What are you going to do? And in those options, one of the options is, well, you could commit crime instead of working.
And he showed, look, if there are economic returns to crime that are, you know, there's some sort of consumptive value that comes out of it, then some people, in the right circumstances, will choose to engage in those unlawful behaviors because there's a return on it.
And that return could just be that they enjoy it, or it could actually be money, right? And they will choose not to do it, but their choices will depend upon the probability they get caught, and then also how much they are fined if they are caught.
And ever since then, economists are like, you know what? That means we can study this and we can try to test some of those base assumptions.
You know, we can test the extent to which people actually respond to the probability of getting caught or, you know, which might be based upon the number of police.
DNA databases, it can be based upon automated cameras, or now there's now there's these new tech companies, the flock cameras, which have these automated license plate readers, right? So it can be based upon any of these things.
One of the ways we talk or I talk about crime is with law enforcement, especially is, you know, there's a certain percentage of crimes that's being committed by, you know, the same group of people.
I think they describe it as the city within the city, the people living in the crime city.
And then you've got this gray area around the crime city and the law and order city.
And I think the model you're talking about really influences the gray area, the city in between.
But how does the model or the thought of that, I mean, how do we gauge crime from the standpoint of when we've got organized crime, gangs, and career criminals?
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