The Effect of Employment Frictions on Crime: Theory and Estimation

Bryan Engelhardt

No 805, Working Papers from College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics

Abstract: I investigate how long it takes for released inmates to find a job, and when they find a job, how their incarceration rate changes. An on-the-job search model with crime is used to model criminal behavior, derive the estimation method and analyze several policies including a job placement program. The results show the unemployed are incarcerated twice as fast as the employed and take on average four months to find a job. Combining these results, it is demonstrated that reducing the average unemployment spell of criminals by two months reduces crime and recidivism by more than five percent.

Keywords: crime; search; unemployment; wage dispersion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C41 E24 J0 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2008-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ure
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