Unemployment and crime: New evidence for an old question

Papps, Kerry L.; Winkelmann, Rainer

doi:10.1080/00779950009544315

Cited by 50 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Examples of panel-data research include Entorf and Spengler (2000) for Germany, Papps and Winkelmann (2000) for New Zealand, Machin and Meghir (2004) for the United Kingdom, Andresen (2013) for Canada, and Arvanites and Defina (2006), Ihlanfeldt (2007), , and Phillips and Land (2012) for the United States. With the exception of Papps and Winkelmann (2000), each of these papers finds at least some evidence in favor of a link between unemployment and crime, in particular, property crime. 38 Nonetheless, Chiricos's review also found that the unemployment-crime relationship was three times more likely to be positive than negative and fifteen times more likely to be positive and significant than negative and significant, indicating a basis for further research.…”

Section: Unemploymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature

Chalfin

McCrary

2017

Journal of Economic Literature

509

279

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We review economics research regarding the effect of police, punishments, and work on crime, with a particular focus on papers from the last twenty years. Evidence in favor of deterrence effects is mixed. While there is considerable evidence that crime is responsive to police and to the existence of attractive legitimate labor-market opportunities, there is far less evidence that crime responds to the severity of criminal sanctions. We discuss fruitful directions for future work and implications for public policy. (JEL J64, K42)

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Section: Unemploymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature

Chalfin

McCrary

2017

Journal of Economic Literature

509

279

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“…However, these standard techniques are better suited to micro (short) panels with large N (number of units) and small T (number of years) that emphasize unit-specific heterogeneity and assume cross-sectional independence, whereas data used in crime-related fields are normally macro (long) panels with the unit dimension similar in size to the time dimension. Empirical studies in this area that use macro panels include Raphael and Winter-Ebmer (2001), Papps and Winkelmann (2000), Edmark (2005), Mehlum et al (2006), Mauser and Maki (2003), Rosenfeld and Fornango (2007), and Blais et al (2011) to mention a few, for which the average N is 16 and the average T is 23. When T is large, unobserved time-varying heterogeneity induced by common shocks will introduce cross-sectional dependence and can render the conventional pooled estimators inconsistent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Relationship Between Crime and Consumer Confidence

Zhang¹

2015

J Quant Criminol

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Objectives This study revisits the relationship between property crime and economic conditions with the latter being represented by a collective economic perception variable in the form of the Index of Consumer Confidence (ICC). The present work takes this application to assess the severity of cross-sectional dependence and nonstationarity, two issues that are deemed pervasive in macro panels but have not been given sufficient consideration in previous research. MethodsThe dataset comprises information for five Canadian regions over a time period of 24 years from 1982 to 2005. The study compares the parameter estimates and residual properties of the commonly used two-way fixed effects (2FE) model and the augmented mean group (AMG) estimator where the latter can accommodate nonstationarity and crosssectional dependence that potentially arise from unobserved common factors.Results In contrast to the 2FE approach, when using the AMG estimator one can reject the null hypothesis that the current ICC has no impact on crime. Some of the effects still hold when an alternative economic indicator, the unemployment rate of young males, is added to the model. Diagnostic tests confirm that the commonly used 2FE estimator yields nonstationary and cross-sectional dependent residuals, whereas the heterogeneous parameter model produces more favorable diagnostic results. ConclusionsThe findings provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that subjective measures of economic conditions are linked to financially-motivated crime rates. Through this application, the study demonstrates the importance of examining underlying data properties and regression residuals in empirical work to ensure the validity of estimates.

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“…From a criminological perspective, the perpetration of a crime is caused by a myriad of factors such as situational circumstances [8,9], social context [24], and individual-level factors [29]. The complexity of both causes and effects of crime, which involves both micro-level and macro-level properties of social systems, emphasizes the need for an agent-based simulation framework to analyze crime and its causes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agent-Based Simulation of Crime

Gutiérrez-García

Aguirre

Landassuri-Moreno

2013

2013 12th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence

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The effects of crime are diverse and complex, ranging from psychological and physical traumas faced by crime victims, to negative impacts on the economy of a whole nation. In this paper, an agent-based crime simulation framework to analyze crime and its causes is proposed and implemented. The agent-based simulation framework models and simulates both 1) crime events as a consequence of a set of interrelated social and individual-level crime factors, and 2) crime opportunities, i.e., combinations of circumstances that enable a person to commit a crime. The selection of crime factors and design of agent models are supported by, and based on, existing criminological literature. In addition, the simulation results are validated and compared with macrolevel crime patterns reported by various criminological research efforts.Agent-based social simulation; agent-based modeling; crime; situational crime

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Unemployment and crime: New evidence for an old question

Cited by 50 publications

References 15 publications

Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature

Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature

Addressing Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Relationship Between Crime and Consumer Confidence

Agent-Based Simulation of Crime

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