Impatience and crime. Evidence from the NLSY97

Stefania Basiglio, Alessandra Foresta and Gilberto Turati ()

No def111, DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE)

Abstract: We empirically test the relationship between crime and impatience at the individual level exploiting data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). Besides providing information on both violent and property crimes, NLSY97 allows to observe dierent behaviors sharing impatience as a common latent factor. We use factor analysis to extract this common factor as a measure for impatience. Estimates from a Logit model suggest a positive association between impatience and crime. This relationship differs across genders: impatience matters for both violent and property crimes for women, while it affects only violent crimes for men. The result is robust to dierent specications of the factor analysis and to controls for risk preferences. Our results bring support to policies aimed at inuencing individual time preferences as an indirect way to combat crime.

Keywords: Time preferences; Impatience; Property crime; Violent crime; NLSY97; factor analysis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D99 K42 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Impatience and crime. Evidence from the NLSY97 (2024)
Working Paper: Impatience and crime. Evidence from the NLSY97 (2021)
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