Evaluating gains from mergers in a non-parametric public good model of police services.

The merger of police services in the UK has been suggested on the grounds that efficiency improvements will be possible. This paper applies a public good model of the police service to evaluate the potential efficiency gains from mergers of police services in England and Wales. We construct a dataset that reflects the public good nature of police service and allows for the exogenous imposition by Government of the level of police service budgets. Our main finding is that English and Welsh police force mergers could lead to increases in police staff resource efficiencies between 10% and 70%.