Economic Uncertainty, Parental Selection, and the Criminal Activity of the 'Children of the Wall'

Arnaud Chevalier and Olivier Marie

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: We study the link between parental selection and children criminality in a new context. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany experienced an unprecedented temporary drop in fertility driven by economic uncertainty. We exploit this natural experiment to estimate that the children from these (smaller) cohorts are 40 percent more likely to commit crimes. We show that women who gave birth at this period were negatively selected. Investigation of the underlying mechanisms reveals that emotional attachment and risk attitudes play important roles in the fertility-crime relationship. Finally, results for siblings support a causal interpretation of our findings.

Keywords: Crime; parental selection; fertility; economic uncertainty; risk attitude (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1256.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Economic uncertainty, parental selection and the criminal activity of the 'children of the wall' (2014)
Working Paper: Economic Uncertainty, Parental Selection, and the Criminal Activity of the 'Children of the Wall' (2013)
Working Paper: Economic Uncertainty, Parental Selection, and the Criminal Activity of the "Children of the Wall" (2013)
Working Paper: Economic Uncertainty, Parental Selection, and the Criminal Activity of the 'Children of the Wall' (2013)
Working Paper: Economic uncertainty, parental selection, and the criminal activity of the ‘children of the wall’ (2013)
Working Paper: Economic uncertainty, parental selection, and the criminal activity of the 'children of the wall' (2013)
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