DOES UNEMPLOYMENT LEAD TO CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES? EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CEE ECONOMIES
Abstract
This paper attempts to shed light on the linkages between criminal behavior and unemployment, with special reference to Central and East European countries (CEE). The adequacy of this paper relies on the premise that econometric modeling of the relation between these variables is very important for explanation of economic and social growth. Our result is in line with the premise that crime goes up when unemployment rises. These findings suggest that to combat crime, all strategies oriented to mitigate unemployment should be investigated. Also, in order to successfully mitigate crime, governmental authorities in the CEE economies need to achieve macroeconomic stability.
References
Almen, D. & Nordin, M. (2011). Long term unemployment and violent crmes- using post-2000 data to reinvestigate the relationship between unemployment and crime. Lund University 34.
Altindag, D. (2012). Crime and unemployment: Evidence from Europe. International Review of Law and Economics, 32 (1), 145-157.
Baharom, A. & Habibullah, M. (2008). Is crime cointegrated with income and unemployment?: A panel data analysis on selected European countries. Munich Personal RePEc Archive 11927.
Becker, G. (1968). Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy, 76 (2), 169-218.
Bell, B. Bindler; A. & Machin, S. (2014). Crime Scars: Recessions and the Making of Career Criminals. CEP Discussion Paper 1284.
Bindler, A. (2014). Still Unemployed, What Next? Crime and Unemployment Duration. University College London Job Market Paper
Cerro, A. & Meloni, O. (2000). Determinants Of The Crime Rate In Argentina During The '90s. Estudios de Economia, 27(2), 297-311.
Cheong, T. S. & Wu, Y. (2015). Crime rates and inequality: a study of crime in contemporary China. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 20(2), 202-223. doi:10.1080/13547860.2014.964961.
Edmark, K. (2003). The Effects of Unemployment on Property Crime: Evidence from a Period of Unusually Large Swings in the Business Cycle. Working Papers 14.
Ehrlich, I. (1973). Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. Journal of Political Economy, 81(3), 521-565. doi:10.1086/260058
Estrada, M. & Ndoma, I. (2016). Assessing the impact of crime on the economic performance: the case of central America. Quality and Quantity, 50, 1201-1211. doi: 10.1007/s11135-015-0198-9
Gillani, S. Rehman, H. & Gill, R. (2009). Unemployment, Poverty, Inflation and Crime Nexus: Cointegration and Causality Analysis of Pakistan. Pakistan Economic and Social Review, 47(1), 79-98.
Gould, E. Weinberg, B. & Mustard, D. (2002). Crime rates and local labor market opportunities in the United States: 1979-1997. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(1): 45-61. doi:10.1162/003465302317331919
Gruszczyńska, B. (2004). Crime in Central and Eastern European Countries in the Enlarged Europe. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 10(2), 123-136. doi: 10.1007/s10610-004-3784-2
Jarque, C., & Bera, A. (1980). Efficient test for normality, heteroskedasticity and serial independence of regression residuals. Economic Letters, 6(3), 255-259.
Janko, Z. & Popli, G. (2015). Examining the link between crima and unemployment: a time-series analysis for Canada. Applied Economics, 47(37), 4007-4019. doi:10.1080/00036846.2015.1023942
Justus, M. & Kassouf, A. (2013). A cointegration analysis of crime, economic activity, and police performance in Sao Paulo city. Journal of Applied Statistics, 40(10), 2087-2109. doi:10.1080/02664763.2013.804905
Kim, S-W. & Pridemore, W. (2005). Social support and homicide in transitional Russia. Journal of Criminal Justice, 33(6), 561–572. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.12.001
Lee, K. (2016). Unemployment and crime: the role of apprehension. European Journal of Law and Economics, doi:10.1007/s10657-016-9526-3
Levitt, S. (2001). Alternative Strategies for Identifying the Link Between Unemployment and Crime. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 17(4), 377-390. doi:10.1023/a:1012541821386
Long, I. & Polito, V. (2014). Unemployment, Crime and Social Insurance. Working Papers E2014/9. Cardiff Economics. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2483912.
Luiz, J. (2001). Temporal Association, the Dynamics of Crime, and their Economic Determinants: A Time Series Econometric Model of South Africa. Social Indicators Research, 53(1), 33-61. doi:10.1023/a:1007192511126
McCall, P. & Brauer, J. (2014). Social welfare support and homicide: Longitudinal analyses of European countries from 1994 to 2010. Social Science Research, 48, 90–107. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.05.009
Mocan, N. & Unel, B. (2011). Skill-Biased Technological Change, Earnings of Unskilled Workers, and Crime. NBER Working Paper 17605, Cambridge. doi: 10.3386/w17605.
Mustard, D. (2010). How Do Labor Markets Affect Crime? New Evidence on an Old Puzzle. Discussion Paper Series IZA DP 4856
Narayan, P. & Smyth, R. (2004). Crime rates, male youth unemployment and real income in Australia: evidence from Granger causality tests. Applied Economics, 36(18), 2079-2095. doi:10.1080/0003684042000261842
Papps, K. & Winkelmann, R. (2000). Unemployment and Crime: New Answers to an Old Question. New Zealand Economic Papers, 34(1), 53-71. doi:10.1080/00779950009544315
Pedroni, P. (2001). Purchasing Power Parity Tests in Cointegrated Panels. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 83(4), 727-731. doi:10.1162/003465301753237803
Pesaran, H. (2007). A simple panet unit root in the presence of cross-section dependence. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 22(2), 265-312. doi:10.1002/jae.951
Pesaran, H. (2004). General diagnostic tests for cross section dependence in panels. Working Papers in Economics 0435, Cambridge.
Pridemore, W. Chamlin, M. & Cochran, J. (2007). An interrupted time-series analysis of Durkheim’s social deregulation thesis: The case of the Russian Federation. Justice Quarterly, 24(2), 271–290. doi:10.1080/07418820701294813
Pridemore, W. (2005). Social Structure and Homicide in Post-Soviet Russia. Social Science Research, 34(4), 732–756. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2004.12.005
Rosenfeld, R. & Messner, S. (2013). Crime and the Economy. SAGE Publications Ltd. doi:10.4135/9781446270097
Speziale, N. (2014). Does unemployment increase crime? Evidence from Italian provinces. Applied Economics Letters, 21(15), 1083-1089. doi:10.1080/13504851.2014.909568
Teles, V. (2004). The Effects of Monetary and Fiscal Policies on Crime. Economics Bulletin, 11(1), 1-9.
Westerlund, J. 2007. ‘Testing for Error Correction in Panel Data’. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 69(6): 709-748, doi:10.1111/j.1468-0084.2007.00477.x
