https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/aaron-chalfin/Aaron ChalfinHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/professional-motivations-in-the-public-sector-evidence-from-police-officers/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/professional-motivations-in-the-public-sector-evidence-from-police-officers/<p>This paper studies how public sector workers balance professional motivations against private economic concerns, using arrest decisions by Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers as the empirical laboratory. The central institutional feature exploited is that arrests made near the end of an officer&rsquo;s shift typically require the officer to stay and work overtime, generating private costs that must be weighed against the professional benefits of making an arrest (e.g., crime reduction or duty fulfillment). The paper further leverages variation from DPD&rsquo;s &ldquo;secondary employment&rdquo; program: approximately 30% of officers held a registered second job at some point during 2019–2021, and on days when a second job is scheduled after the police shift, the opportunity cost of late-shift policing is higher.</p>