Unemployment and Crime - Exploring the Link in Times of Crises
(2011) NEKK01 20111Department of Economics
- Abstract
- Theories of Economics of Crime suggest that the unemployment rate should influence the crime rates and especially property crime rates. In this paper I investigate the effect of three different types of unemployment on crime rates (total unemployment (age 16-64), youth unemployment (age 18-24) and long-term unemployment (age 20-64)). Although theory is mostly applicable on property crimes I also include some violent crimes. I examine the proposed link by using a panel data set of 288 Swedish municipalities for the period of 1997-2009. The time period exhibits large variations in the unemployment rates, which offers a good opportunity to isolate the unemployment effect. In this paper I find evidence of an association between unemployment... (More)
- Theories of Economics of Crime suggest that the unemployment rate should influence the crime rates and especially property crime rates. In this paper I investigate the effect of three different types of unemployment on crime rates (total unemployment (age 16-64), youth unemployment (age 18-24) and long-term unemployment (age 20-64)). Although theory is mostly applicable on property crimes I also include some violent crimes. I examine the proposed link by using a panel data set of 288 Swedish municipalities for the period of 1997-2009. The time period exhibits large variations in the unemployment rates, which offers a good opportunity to isolate the unemployment effect. In this paper I find evidence of an association between unemployment and crime. In the Baseline Model, total unemployment seems to have a significant effect on mainly property crimes. Youth unemployment exhibits a weaker relationship overall but with a significant effect on burglary and narcotic crimes. When investigating long-term unemployment I find it to have a significant effect on both violent crimes and property crimes. This reveals a possible discrepancy between reality and basic theory, which suggests a correlation between unemployment and property crimes only. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1971430
- author
- Almén, Daniel LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- NEKK01 20111
- year
- 2011
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Unemployment, Crime, Panel Data
- language
- English
- id
- 1971430
- date added to LUP
- 2011-06-14 14:42:32
- date last changed
- 2011-06-14 14:42:32
@misc{1971430, abstract = {{Theories of Economics of Crime suggest that the unemployment rate should influence the crime rates and especially property crime rates. In this paper I investigate the effect of three different types of unemployment on crime rates (total unemployment (age 16-64), youth unemployment (age 18-24) and long-term unemployment (age 20-64)). Although theory is mostly applicable on property crimes I also include some violent crimes. I examine the proposed link by using a panel data set of 288 Swedish municipalities for the period of 1997-2009. The time period exhibits large variations in the unemployment rates, which offers a good opportunity to isolate the unemployment effect. In this paper I find evidence of an association between unemployment and crime. In the Baseline Model, total unemployment seems to have a significant effect on mainly property crimes. Youth unemployment exhibits a weaker relationship overall but with a significant effect on burglary and narcotic crimes. When investigating long-term unemployment I find it to have a significant effect on both violent crimes and property crimes. This reveals a possible discrepancy between reality and basic theory, which suggests a correlation between unemployment and property crimes only.}}, author = {{Almén, Daniel}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Unemployment and Crime - Exploring the Link in Times of Crises}}, year = {{2011}}, }