School Starting Age and the Crime-Age Profile

Rasmus Landersø, Helena Nielsen and Marianne Simonsen

No 9279, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper uses register-based data to investigate the effects of school starting age on crime. Through this, we provide insights into the determinants of crime-age profiles. We exploit that Danish children typically start first grade in the calendar year they turn seven, which gives rise to a discontinuity in school starting age for children born around New Year. Our analysis speaks against a simple invariant crime-age profile as is popular in criminology: we find that higher school starting age lowers the propensity to commit crime at young ages. We also find effects on the number of crimes committed for boys.

Keywords: violence; old-for-grade; school start; criminal charges; property crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2015-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ger and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Forthcoming - published in: Economic Journal, 2017, 127, 1096-1118

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Journal Article: School Starting Age and the Crime‐age Profile (2017)
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