Inequality and crime

Open Access publications from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: This paper considers the relationship between inequality and crime using data from urban counties. The behavior of property and violent crime are quite different. Inequality has no effect on property crime but a strong and robust impact on violent crime, with an elasticity above 0.5. By contrast, poverty and police activity have significant effects on property crime, but little on violent crime. Property crime is well explained by the economic theory of crime, while violent crime is better explained by strain and social disorganization theories.

Keywords: Crime--Sociological aspects; Violent crimes; Offenses against property (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2000-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (248)

Published in: Review of Economics and Statistics, 82(4) 2000-11

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/523 Open Access version, 2000 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Inequality And Crime (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/523

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Open Access publications from School of Economics, University College Dublin Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nicolas Clifton ().