A Partner in Crime: Assortative Matching and Bias in the Crime Market

Evelina Gavrilova

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In this paper I analyze partnership formation within the property crime market in the United States. I develop a static matching model, in which a criminal forms a partnership with a counterpart with the same probability of success. Using individual arrest data from the National Incident Based Reporting System, I pinpoint matches where the underlying ability of two partners differ. This difference in ability is correlated to observable characteristics, making the case for discrimination. By comparing the regression results to success means for the same demographic groups, I find patterns consistent with discrimination. Beside the patterns of gender and racial segregation, I find that in white-black matches, blacks outperform whites, consistent with success means. In male-female matches the female's success realization is higher than the male's, contrary to the difference in success means, where males on average outperform females, hinting at a distaste premium.

Keywords: Assortative Matching; Bias; Crime; Discrimination; Organized Crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 J16 J71 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-gth and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A partner in crime: Assortative matching and bias in the crime market (2019)
Working Paper: A Partner in Crime: Assortative Matching and Bias in the Crime Market (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:50432

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