Shaking Criminal Incentives

Yu Aoki and Theodore Koutmeridis ()
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Theodore Koutmeridis: University of Glasgow

No 12781, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study criminal incentives exploiting the devastating shock of the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Evidence shows that the earthquake decreased burglaries but left other crime types unaffected. The effect stays significant even after controlling for unemployment, policing and income. We corroborate this by instrumenting damages with the distance from the earthquake epicentre. These findings survive various robustness checks under different specifications. The evidence is consistent with a simple theory of crime, value and specialization. We conclude that burglars respond to damages that devaluate their prospective takings. Yet, they cannot shift their specialization and substitute burglaries with other crime types.

Keywords: crime; burglary; value; housing damage; specialization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-ore and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Shaking Criminal Incentives (2019)
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