Economic Conditions, Deterrence and Juvenile Crime: Evidence from Micro Data

This article investigates the determinants of criminal activityamong juveniles in the United States. It uses a survey of U.S.high school students conducted in 1995, which provides detailedinformation on offenses; personal, family, and neighborhoodcharacteristics; as well as deterrence measures. The determinantsof selling drugs and committing assault, robbery, burglary,and theft are analyzed separately for males and females. Theresults provide some evidence that juveniles respond to incentivesand sanctions. Employment opportunities and policies designedto increase the probability of arrest may be effective toolsfor reducing juvenile crime.     

The crime effect of refugees

We analyze the impact on crime of millions of refugees who entered and stayed in Turkey as a result of the civil war in Syria. Using a novel administrative data source on the flow of offense records to prosecutors’ offices in 81 provinces of the country each year, and utilizing the staggered movement of refugees across provinces over time, we estimate instrumental variables models that address potential endogeneity of the number of refugees and their location and find that an increase in the number of refugees leads to more crime. We estimate that the influx of refugees between 2012 and 2016 generated additional 75,000 to 150,000 crimes per year, although it is not possible to identify the distribution of these crimes between refugees and natives. Additional analyses reveal that a low-educated native population has a separate, but smaller, effect on crime. Our results underline the need to quickly strengthen the social safety systems, to take actions to dampen the impact on the labor market, and to provide support to the criminal justice system for mitigating the repercussions of massive influx of individuals into a country, and to counter the social and political backlash that typically emerges in the wake of such large-scale population movements.     

Economic well-being and anti-Semitic,xenophobic, and racist attitudes in Germany

European Journal of Law and Economics - The fear and hatred of others who are different has economic consequences because such feelings are likely to translate into discrimination in labor, credit,...