Revisiting the Income Inequality-Crime Puzzle

Matteo Pazzona

World Development, 2024, vol. 176, issue C

Abstract: The economics literature generally supports a positive theoretical link between income inequality and crime. However, despite this consensus, empirical evidence has struggled to yield definitive conclusions. To address this puzzle, I conducted a meta-analysis based on 1,341 estimates drawn from 43 studies in economics journals. The findings indicate a statistically significant but economically insignificant true effect of inequality on crime, ranging between 0.007 and 0.123 using UWLS FAT-PET and advanced methods. In essence, if there is an impact of inequality on crime, it is, at best, minimal. Additionally, there is some limited evidence suggesting positive publication bias. Results from Bayesian model averaging reveal that inequality does not affect exclusively property crime, as predicted by the rational choice models. Moreover, this analysis shows that inequality measures which are sensitive to changes in income at the middle and top of the distribution are associated with higher coefficients. The study also underscores the biases arising from the exclusion of relevant variables. The implications of this research suggest that inequality may not be the primary motivator for criminal behaviour, with other factors potentially playing more significant roles. Lastly, if inequality does affect crime, it might do so in different ways than those discussed by the majority of the existing empirical studies.

Keywords: Crime; Income inequality; Meta-analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X23003388
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:wdevel:v:176:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x23003388

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106520

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().