School Starting Age and Crime

Rasmus Landersø, Helena Nielsen and Marianne Simonsen

No 7228, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of school starting age on crime while relying on variation in school starting age induced by administrative rules; we exploit that Danish children typically start first grade in the calendar year they turn seven, which gives rise to a discontinuity in children's school starting age. Analyses are carried out using register-based Danish data. We find that higher age at school start lowers the propensity to commit crime, but that this reduction is caused by incapacitation while human capital accumulation is unaffected. Importantly, we also find that the individuals who benefit most from being old-for-grade are those with high latent abilities whereas those with low latent ability seem to be unaffected by being old-for-grade in school.

Keywords: violence; old-for-grade; school start; criminal charges; property crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-law and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: School Starting Age and Crime (2013)
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