The externalities of crime: The effect of criminal involvement of parents on the educational attainment of their children

Iryna Rud, Chris Klaveren, Wim Groot and Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink

Economics of Education Review, 2014, vol. 38, issue C, 89-103

Abstract: The empirical literature on education and crime suggests that both criminal behavior and educational attainment are transferred from parents to children. However, the impact of criminal behavior of parents on educational outcomes of children is generally ignored, even though the entailed social costs may be substantial. This study examines the effect of parents’ criminal involvement on the educational attainment of their children. To identify this effect, we combine a multinomial logit model with a Mahalanobis matching approach. The findings suggest that having criminally involved parents (1) increases the probability of finishing primary education as the highest education level attained (7–9 percentage points), and (2) decreases the probability of attaining higher education (2–6 percentage points). These results are robust to various specifications and are unlikely to be fully driven by differences in unobservables.

Keywords: Educational economics; Demand for schooling; Criminal involvement; Intergenerational transmission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J24 K14 K49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:38:y:2014:i:c:p:89-103

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.11.006

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