IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/atlecj/v46y2018i2d10.1007_s11293-018-9581-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rural-Urban Differences in the Unemployment-Crime Relationship: The Case of Pennsylvania

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah A. Frederick

    (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

  • James J. Jozefowicz

    (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

This study analyzes the unemployment-crime (U-C) relationship in urban and rural Pennsylvania counties using a balanced panel data set over the period from 1990 to 2009. A two-way fixed effects model is estimated to account for unobserved county-specific and time-specific heterogeneity. The criminal opportunity and criminal motivation effects of unemployment on crime advanced by Cantor and Land are tested. The results suggest that there are rural-urban differences in the impacts of the covariates. Specifically, both statistically significant criminal opportunity and criminal motivation effects are present in urban counties. In contrast, rural counties fail to conform to U-C predictions. Oaxaca decomposition reveals that the unexplained portion of the rural-urban difference in the crime rate is 12%. The results provide support for addressing labor market conditions to complement traditional crime-fighting measures in urban settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah A. Frederick & James J. Jozefowicz, 2018. "Rural-Urban Differences in the Unemployment-Crime Relationship: The Case of Pennsylvania," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 46(2), pages 189-201, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:46:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11293-018-9581-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11293-018-9581-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11293-018-9581-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11293-018-9581-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Reilly, Barry & Witt, Robert, 1996. "Crime, Deterrence and Unemployment in England and Wales: An Empirical Analysis," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 137-159, April.
    3. George Saridakis & Hannes Spengler, 2009. "Crime, Deterrence and Unemployment in Greece: A Panel Data Approach," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 853, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Steve Cook & Tom Winfield, 2015. "The urban-rural divide, regional disaggregation and the convergence of crime," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(47), pages 5072-5087, October.
    5. Juin-jen Chang & Chi-Hsin Wu, 2012. "Crime, Job Searches, and Economic Growth," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 40(1), pages 3-19, March.
    6. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-290, June.
    7. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    8. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 1999. "Why Is There More Crime in Cities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 225-258, December.
    9. Isaac Ehrlich, 1996. "Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 43-67, Winter.
    10. Terance J. Rephann, 1999. "articles: Links between rural development and crime," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 78(4), pages 365-386.
    11. Andresen, Martin A., 2013. "Unemployment, business cycles, crime, and the Canadian provinces," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 220-227.
    12. Sourav Batabyal, 2011. "Temporal Causality and the Dynamics of Crime and Delinquency," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 39(4), pages 421-441, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thiess Buettner, 2003. "Local Determinants of Crime: Distinguishing Between Resident and Non-resident Offenders," ERSA conference papers ersa03p396, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Entorf, Horst & Spengler, Hannes, 2000. "Socioeconomic and demographic factors of crime in Germany: Evidence from panel data of the German states," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 75-106, March.
    3. Jaewook Byeon & Iljoong Kim & Dongwon Lee, 2018. "Protest and property crime: political use of police resources and the deterrence of crime," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(1), pages 181-196, April.
    4. Marcel Fafchamps & Christine Moser, 2003. "Crime, Isolation and Law Enforcement," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(4), pages 625-671, December.
    5. Denis Fougère & Francis Kramarz & Julien Pouget, 2009. "Youth Unemployment and Crime in France," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(5), pages 909-938, September.
    6. Halicioglu, Ferda & Andrés, Antonio R. & Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Modeling crime in Japan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1640-1645.
    7. Thomas A. Garrett & Lesli S. Ott, 2008. "City business cycles and crime," Working Papers 2008-026, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    8. Isaac Ehrlich, 2010. "The Market Model of Crime: A Short Review and New Directions," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Bruce Weinberg & Eric Gould & David Mustard, 1998. "Crime Rates and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979-1995," Working Papers 98-11, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Alves, Luiz G.A. & Ribeiro, Haroldo V. & Mendes, Renio S., 2013. "Scaling laws in the dynamics of crime growth rate," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(11), pages 2672-2679.
    11. Luiz G A Alves & Haroldo V Ribeiro & Ervin K Lenzi & Renio S Mendes, 2013. "Distance to the Scaling Law: A Useful Approach for Unveiling Relationships between Crime and Urban Metrics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-8, August.
    12. Mejía, Daniel & Restrepo, Pascual, 2016. "Crime and conspicuous consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-14.
    13. Tom Kirchmaier & Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi & Robert Witt, 2020. "Prices, Policing and Policy: The Dynamics of Crime Booms and Busts," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 1040-1077.
    14. Imrohoroglu, Ayse & Merlo, Antonio & Rupert, Peter, 2000. "On the Political Economy of Income Redistribution and Crime," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(1), pages 1-25, February.
    15. Milo Bianchi & Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Pinotti, 2012. "Do Immigrants Cause Crime?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1318-1347, December.
    16. Alejandro Gaviria & Carlos Medina & Jorge Tamayo, 2010. "Assessing the Link between Adolescent Fertility and Urban Crime," Borradores de Economia 6860, Banco de la Republica.
    17. Entorf, H. & Winker, P., 2008. "Investigating the drugs-crime channel in economics of crime models: Empirical evidence from panel data of the German States," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 8-22, March.
    18. William S. Reece, 2010. "Casinos, Hotels, And Crime," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(2), pages 145-161, April.
    19. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Lederman, Daniel & Loayza, Norman, 2002. "What causes violent crime?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1323-1357, July.
    20. Justina A.V. Fischer, 2005. "The Impact of Direct Democracy on Crime: Is the Median Voter Boundedly Rational?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2005 2005-14, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:46:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11293-018-9581-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.