Does Wealth Inhibit Criminal Behavior? Evidence from Swedish Lottery Winners and Their Children

David Cesarini, Erik Lindqvist, Robert Östling and Christofer Schroeder ()
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Christofer Schroeder: European Central Bank

No 16/2023, Working Paper Series from Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research

Abstract: There is a well-established negative gradient between economic status and crime, but its underlying causal mechanisms are not well understood. We use data on four Swedish lotteries matched to data on criminal convictions to gauge the causal effect of financial windfalls on player`s own crime and their children`s delinquency. We estimate a positive but statistically insignificant effect of lottery wealth on players`own conviction risk. Our estimates allows us to rule out effects one fifth as large as the cross-sectional gradient between income and crime. We also estimate a less precise null effect of parental lottery wealth on child delinquency.

Keywords: economics of crime; juvenile crime; income and wealth inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2023-11-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-law, nep-ltv and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Working Paper: Does Wealth Inhibit Criminal Behavior? Evidence from Swedish Lottery Winners and Their Children (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2023_016

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