Crime Victimization, Neighbourhood Safety and Happiness in China

Zhiming Cheng and Russell Smyth

No 08-15, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine the relationship between happiness, crime victimization and neighbourhood safety in China. We find that being a victim of crime, and having an acquaintance who is a victim of crime, have a negative effect on happiness. The cost of compensating someone who is a victim of crime, such that they are returned to the same position as if they had not been victimized, is similar to the cost of compensating someone who has an acquaintance who is a victim of crime (around 60 per cent of annual household income). Females who are victims of crime, and victims of out-of-home theft and assault/threat, feel less victimized if they have an acquaintance who is also a victim of crime with whom to share their experience. Living in a safe neighbourhood has a positive effect on happiness. The amount needed to compensate someone for living in an unsafe, or neutral neighbourhood, as opposed to safe neighbourhood, is 1500 per cent of annual household income, which is much higher than the shadow price suggested by previous studies for the United States and United Kingdom.

Keywords: China; Crime victimization; Neighbourhood safety; Happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 I31 K42 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-hap and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/paper ... zationchengsmyth.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2015/0815crimevictimizationchengsmyth.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business/ [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business)

Related works:
Journal Article: Crime victimization, neighborhood safety and happiness in China (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-08

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.monash.e ... esearch/publications

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Simon Angus ().