Personal Indebtedness, Spatial Effects and Crime

Stuart McIntyre and Donald Lacombe ()
Additional contact information
Donald Lacombe: Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University,

No 1209, Working Papers from University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics

Abstract: There is a long and detailed history of attempts to understand what causes crime. One of the most prominent strands of this literature has sought to better understand the relationship between economic conditions and crime. Following Becker (1968), the economic argument is that in an attempt to maintain consumption in the face of unemployment, people may resort to sources of illicit income. In a similar manner, we might expect ex-ante, that increases in the level of personal indebtedness would be likely to provide similar incentives to engage in criminality. In this paper we seek to understand the spatial pattern of property and theft crimes using a range of socioeconomic variables, including data on the level of personal indebtedness.

Keywords: Spatial Econometrics; Crime; Personal Debt; Economic Conditions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C11 C21 K42 R1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-law and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Personal Indebtedness, Spatial Effects and Crime (2013)
Working Paper: Personal Indebtedness, Spatial Effects and Crime (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:str:wpaper:1209

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