Качество институтов и частные инвестиции в безопасность

Provision of security is believed to constitute one of the crucial functions of the modern state. Today, however, security as a public good, which is characterized by nonrivalry and nonexcludability, has been provided by both public and private actors. There exists a huge variation in interaction between private and public investment in security. In the present paper, the attempt to account for this variation has been made. Questioning the implicit assumption of institutional efficiency that governs research in political economy of security, I hypothesize that institutional quality affects both private investment in security and interaction between private and public investment in security. The empirical analysis of the factors of private investment in security in Russia in 2009-2014 reveals the following evidence. First, quality of intuitions does wield direct and indirect influence of private investment in security. Indirect influence is mediated by public investment in security and income inequality. Second, decrease in public security provision and increase in income inequality increase private investment in security, which demotes nonrivalry and nonexcludability of security. Finally, increase in institutional quality mitigates the impact that public security investment and income inequality exert on public security investment. This constitutes the main finding of the paper: better institutions make security as a public good more public.