A non-stationary panel data investigation of the unemployment-crime relationship

Abstract

Many empirical studies of the economics of crime focus solely on the determinants thereof, and do not consider the dynamic and cross-sectional properties of their data. As a response to this, the current paper offers an in-depth analysis of this issue using data covering 21 Swedish counties from 1975 to 2010. The results suggest that the crimes considered are non-stationary, and that this cannot be attributed to county-specific disparities alone, but that there are also a small number of common stochastic trends to which groups of counties tend to revert. In an attempt to explain these common stochastic trends, we look for a long-run cointegrated relationship between unemployment and crime. Overall, the results do not support cointegration, and suggest that previous findings of a significant unemployment-crime relationship might be spurious. (c) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Crime; Unemployment; Panel data; Unit roots; Cointegration; Cross-section dependence

Published in

Social Science Research
2014, volume: 44, pages: 114-125
Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

SLU Authors

• Blomquist, Johan

  • Lund University

Global goals (SDG)

SDG16 Peace, justice and strong institutions

UKÄ Subject classification

Sociology (excluding Social work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.11.007

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/67864