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

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels


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