Crime and the Business Cycle

Cook, Philip J.; Zarkin, Gary A.

doi:10.1086/467767

Cited by 159 publications

(111 citation statements)

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“…This selection can be considered as a set of crime types with cyclical behavior, which has a strong relationship with the business cycle. We emphasize that no violent crime is included in the last output: such a result is in line with other empirical studies that find a low correlation between violent crimes and economic performance (Cook and Zarkin, 1985;Fougère et al 2007). …”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…A number of works measure the effect of the business cycle on crime rate implementing univariate time series or VAR approaches (Cantor and Land, 1985, Cook and Zarkin, 1985, Corman et al, 1987, Arvanites and Defina, 2006. In general, the findings show that property crimes seem to have a significant counter-cyclical component while crimes against persons are not as sensitive to variations in economic activity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By using annual data, Cook and Zarkin (1985) analyze the impact of economic fluctuations on robbery, burglary, auto theft and homicide in the US in the time span 1933-1981. By applying parametric and nonparametric approaches, they find that crimes such as robbery and burglary are countercyclical with respect to economic growth, while auto theft is pro-cyclical.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Cycles in Crime and Economy: Leading, Lagging and Coincident Behaviors

Detotto

Otranto

2011

J Quant Criminol

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In the last decades, the interest in the relationship between crime and business cycle has widely increased. It is a diffused opinion that a causal relationship goes from economic variables to criminal activities, but this causal effect is observed only for some typology of crimes, such as property crimes. In this work we examine the possibility of the existence of some common factors (interpreted as cyclical components) driving the dynamics of Gross Domestic Product and a large set of criminal types by using the nonparametric version of the dynamic factor model. A first aim of this exercise is to detect some comovements between the business cycle and the cyclical component of some typologies of crime, which could evidence some relationships between these variables; a second purpose is to select which crime types are related to the business cycle and if they are leading, coincident or lagging. Italy is the case study for the time span 1991:1–2004:12; the crime typologies are constituted by the 22 official categories classified by the Italian National Statistical Institute. The study finds that most of the crime types show a counter-cyclical behavior with respect to the overall economic performance, and only a few of them have an evident relationship with the business cycle. Furthermore, some crime offenses, such as bankruptcy, embezzlement and fraudulent insolvency, seem to anticipate the business cycle, in line with recent global events

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cycles in Crime and Economy: Leading, Lagging and Coincident Behaviors

Detotto

Otranto

2011

J Quant Criminol

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“…One then expects that if she conforms to the constraint this should be re ‡ected in the consensus polls. Indeed, as Angela Merkel has insisted in her severe policy towards Greece 22 , approval of her policy has increased steadily: in September 2011 45% of the Germans were satis…ed with the way Angela Merkel was handling the crisis; the proportion increases to 56% in November 2011 and 80% in the Spring of 2012 (Table 2, question 9). 23 In general, direct evidence of the conformity constraint is hard to obtain.…”

Section: Evidence In Support Of the Cultural Clash Explanation 431 mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Differences and Institutional Integration

Guiso

Herrera

Morelli

2016

Journal of International Economics

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If citizens of di¤erent countries belonging to an economic union adhere to di¤erent and deeply rooted cultural norms, when these countries interact they may …nd it impossible to agree on e¢ cient policies, especially in hard times. Political leaders are bound to follow policies that do not violate their country's cultural norms. This paper provides a simple positive theory and a compelling case study of the Euro area crisis to highlight the importance of cultural clashes when economies integrate. We also provide a normative argument about the desirability of institutional integration: a political union, with a common enforcement agency, is the more bene…cial the greater is cultural diversity in an economic union.Keywords: Cultural Norms, Institutions, Euro Area, Crisis Mismanagement. JEL classi…cation numbers: D72This paper previously circulated under the title "A Cultural Clash View of the Euro Crisis." We thank two anonymous referees as well as Sascha Becker, Alberto Bisin, Serra Boranbay, Francesco Giavazzi, Gilat Levy, Assar Lindbeck, Elias Papaioannou, John Patty, Giacomo Ponzetto, Andrei Shleifer, Enrico Spolaore, Francesco Squintani, Livio Stracca, Sebastian Turban, Philippe Weil and participants at various workshops for great suggestions and comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

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“…During the second decade, empirical work by economist used either time series methods and aggregate, generally UCR, data (e.g., Cook and Zarkin, 1985;Ehrlich and Erower, 1987;Hashimoto, 1987;Phillips and Ray, 1982;Yamada, 1985) or qualitative and limited dependent variable techniques and individual data (e.g., Good, Pirog-Cood and Sickles, 1986;Montmarguette andNerlove, 1985: Myers, 1983;Viscusi, 1986aViscusi, , 1986bSchmidt and Witte, 1984;Witte, 1980,). Since the latter work relates most closely to our own we will concentrate our review on this literature.…”

Section: The Second Decadementioning

confidence: 99%

Deterrence, Work and Crime: Revisiting the Issues with Birth Cohort Data

Tauchen

Witte

Griesinger

1988

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In this paper we analyze the criminal behavior of a cohort sample of young men over an eight year period using random effects probit and Tobi techniques. Our major advances relate to our careful conceptualization of general deterrence, and our data. As far as we are aware, this work represents the first time that a richly specified model of criminal activity has been estimated using panel data for a general population group.We find very robust evidence for a general deterrent effect emanating from police resources. Our results regarding general deterrence are open to fewer questions than previous findings. We also find that working and going to school significantly decrease the probability of committing criminal acts and by virtually identical amounts. This similarity of effect when coupled with other findings suggests that crime does not serve mainly as a direct source of income and that incentive effects emanating from higher wages are not very strong. There is little empirical support for the "crime as work" model that has dominated economic thought regarding crime over the last two decades. More fruitful models of work and crime may result if work is conceived as having its primary effects either through preferences or -through information.

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Crime and the Business Cycle

Cited by 159 publications

References 0 publications

Cycles in Crime and Economy: Leading, Lagging and Coincident Behaviors

Cycles in Crime and Economy: Leading, Lagging and Coincident Behaviors

Cultural Differences and Institutional Integration

Deterrence, Work and Crime: Revisiting the Issues with Birth Cohort Data

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