Crime Rates And Local Labor Market Opportunities In The United States: 1979-1997Eric D. Gould, Bruce A. Weinberg and David B. Mustard () The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2002, vol. 84, issue 1, pages 45-61 Abstract: The labor market prospects of young, unskilled men fell dramatically in the 1980s and improved in the 1990s. Crime rates show a reverse pattern: increasing during the 1980s and falling in the 1990s. Because young, unskilled men commit most crime, this paper seeks to establish a causal relationship between the two trends. Previous work on the relationship between labor markets and crime focused mainly on the relationship between the unemployment rate and crime, and found inconclusive results. In contrast, this paper examines the impact of both wages and unemployment on crime, and uses instrumental variables to establish causality. We conclude that both wages and unemployment are significantly related to crime, but that wages played a larger role in the crime trends over the last few decades. These results are robust to the inclusion of deterrence variables, controls for simultaneity, and controlling for individual and family characteristics. © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog Date: 2002 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article The Review of Economics and Statistics is edited by Daron Acemoglu, George J. Borjas, Dani Rodrik and Julio J. Rotemberg More articles in The Review of Economics and Statistics from MIT Press |
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