Does Social Capital Reduce Crime?

Paolo Buonanno, Daniel Montolio and Paolo Vanin

No 605, Working Papers (-2012) from University of Bergamo, Department of Economics

Abstract: We investigate the effects of civic norms and associational networks on crime rates. Through their impact on trust and economic development, civic norms may raise the expected returns to crime, but they may also increase its opportunity cost and the feelings of guilt and shame attached to it. Associational networks may increase returns to non-criminal activities and raise detection probabilities, but they may also provide communication channels for criminals. The empirical assessment of these effects poses serious problems of endogeneity, omitted variables and measurement error. Italy’s great variance in social and economic characteristics, its homogeneity in policies and institutions, and the availability of historical data on social capital in its regions allow us to minimise the first two problems. To tackle the third one, we exploit high and stable report rates for some forms of property crime. Once we address these problems, we find that both civic norms and associational networks have a negative and significant impact on property crimes across Italian provinces.

Keywords: Civic norms; Associational networks; Property crime; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 K42 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2006-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does Social Capital Reduce Crime? (2009)
Working Paper: Does Social Capital Reduce Crime? (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:brg:wpaper:0605

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