After getting a traffic ticket, a St. Louis Federal Reserve Board economist decided to do some research: do cops issue more tickets during recessions? Turns out, youbetcha.
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Controlling for other factors, a 1 percentage point drop in local government revenue leads to a roughly .32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year, a statistically significant connection.

If my math is correct, with the more than 24% budget shortfall in New York State due to the crash and the credit crisis, there should be about an 8% increase in tickets next year. David Letterman better watch out.

Source: STLtoday.com

One Response to “Red Ink in the Rear View Mirror”

Gary Trudel says:

March 17, 2009 at 9:27 pm

This is very true, especially in Scotia, NY where the cops were told by local government to write more tickets in order to generate revenue.

Red Ink in the Rear View Mirror

Jan 8th, 2009

After getting a traffic ticket, a St. Louis Federal Reserve Board economist decided to do some research: do cops issue more tickets during recessions? Turns out, youbetcha.
Controlling for other factors, a 1 percentage point drop in local government revenue leads to a roughly .32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year, a statistically significant connection.
If my math is correct, with the more than 24% budget shortfall in New York State due to the crash and the credit crisis, there should be about an 8% increase in tickets next year. David Letterman better watch out.
Source: STLtoday.com

About the author

Michael is a Toronto-based broadcaster, technology enthusiast, amateur photographer, and secret agent.

See what else Michael has written about on the topics of cop, Economics, police, recession, ticket, traffic.

One Response to “Red Ink in the Rear View Mirror”