Crime and Poverty: Evidence From a Natural Experiment

Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten ()

No 2002-23, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between poverty and crime. Following a disputed presidential election, fuel supply to the highlands of Madagascar was severely curtailed in early 2002, resulting in a massive if temporary increase in poverty. Using original survey data collected in June 2002 at the height f the crisis, we find that crime increase with poverty. Our most conclusive results are for crop theft. We also find that an increase in law enforcement personnel reduces cattle theft which, in Madagascar, is a form of organised crime. Theft appears to be used by some of the rural poor as a risk coping strategy. Increased transport costs led to a rise in a cattle and crop theft, suggesting that isolation raises crime.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f90ecd7d-59b7-4b2f-ac28-cb39ce13d89e (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Crime and Poverty: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2004)
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:csa:wpaper:2002-23

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Julia Coffey ().