No abstract

Over the last three decades, an extensive body of research evidence has emerged on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and a range of negative outcomes, including offending. Using data from a Scottish child cohort study, this article seeks to better understand how both ACEs and material deprivation influence childhood offending. We show that while the number of ACEs is a strong predictor of childhood offending, certain types of childhood adversity are of greater importance than others. We also find that living in persistent poverty at the neighbourhood level remains a key predictor of childhood offending, but there are complex interactions between poverty and ACEs that should be considered in developing policy responses.

Do illegal drugs foster public corruption? To estimate the causal e¤ect of drugs on public corruption in California, we adopt the synthetic control method and exploit the fact that crack cocaine markets emerged asynchronously across the United States. We focus on California because crack arrived here in 1981, before reaching any other state. Our results show that public corruption more than tripled in California in the …rst three years following the arrival of crack cocaine. We argue that this resulted from the particular characteristics of illegal drugs: a large trade-o¤ between pro…ts and law enforcement, due to a cheap technology and rigid demand. Such a trade-o¤ fosters a convergence of interests between criminals and corrupted public o¢ cials resulting in a positive causal impact of illegal drugs on corruption.

This paper aims to highlight the importance of considering endogenous peer effects, as defined by Manski (1993), in order to identify gender composition effect on education outcome appropriately. Using Manski (1993) linear-in-means model, this paper illustrates that the gender composition effect that is currently estimated in education function is the function of three parameters: social multiplier, gender differences in outcome and gender composition effect (known as a gender peer effect). The appropriate gender peer effect is identified after using Graham's variance restriction method to identify and rule out a social multiplier effect. The findings suggest that a social multiplier plays a crucial role in learning process for Italian secondary and US primary students, although a gender peer effect is not as important as highlighted in previous literatures (

No abstract

This paper shows that organised crime harms technological development. We provide evidence that forced resettlement of bosses promoted the mafia's rooting in northern Italy. With forced resettlement as an exogenous source of variation, we unveil that mafias cause a reduction in technology levels. Moving from the technology stock to a flow generating it-innovation-we demonstrate that mafias stifle innovation. We argue that without mafia, Nature selects agents for their innovation capacity. Instead, with mafia, agents face an alternative strategy: relate with mafia; this strategy, infringing property rights and competition, hinders innovation. Using evolutionary dynamics, we show that while mafias decrease innovation, proper sanctions/indemnities can address the problem.

That parental offending acts as a strong risk factor for offending in children is well-established within criminology. Yet, research on maternal offending is relatively limited, even though many women take on a significantly higher share of childcare responsibilities, and as such, might reasonably be expected to exert an especially strong influence on their children. In part, this lacuna might be attributed to a male-centric lens within criminology, which has tended to overlook female offending. Aimed in part at redressing this imbalance, this article investigates the maternal transmission of offending among a cohort of 12-year-olds, using self-report data from the longitudinal Growing Up in Scotland study. The analysis shows that intragenerational maternal offending acts as a significant predictor of offending among daughters, but that intergenerational offending does not. We found no significant relationship between mothers’ offending and sons’, who appear more vulnerable to a range of wider risk factors.

Do illegal drugs foster public corruption? To estimate the causal e¤ect of drugs on public corruption in California, we adopt the synthetic control method and exploit the fact that crack cocaine markets emerged asynchronously across the United States. We focus on California because crack arrived here in 1981, before reaching any other state. Our results show that public corruption more than tripled in California in the …rst three years following the arrival of crack cocaine. We argue that this resulted from the particular characteristics of illegal drugs: a large trade-o¤ between pro…ts and law enforcement, due to a cheap technology and rigid demand. Such a trade-o¤ fosters a convergence of interests between criminals and corrupted public o¢ cials resulting in a positive causal impact of illegal drugs on corruption.