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Unemployment and Right-Wing Extremist Crime

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Author Info
Armin Falk
Josef Zweimüller

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Abstract

Right-wing extremism is a serious problem in many societies. A prominent hypothesis states that unemployment plays a crucial role for the occurrence of right-wing extremist crime. In this paper we empirically test this hypothesis. We use a previously not used data set which includes all officially recorded right-wing criminal acts in Germany. These data are recorded by the German Federal Criminal Police Office on a monthly and state level basis. Our main finding is that there is in fact a significant positive relation between unemployment and right-wing criminal activities. We show further that the big difference in right-wing crime between East and West German states can mostly be attributed to differences in unemployment. This finding reinforces the importance of unemployment as an explanatory factor for right-wing crime and questions explanations based solely on the different socialization in former communist East Germany and the liberal West German states. Our data further allow us to separate violent from non-violent right-wing crimes. We show that unemployment is closely related to both types of crimes, but that the association with non-violent crimes is much stronger. Since right-wing crime is committed particularly by relatively young males, we also explore whether the youth unemployment rate is a better predictor for right-wing crime than total unemployment. This hypothesis can be rejected: given total unemployment, a higher share of youth unemployment does not affect right-wing extremist crime rates.

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Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW in its series IEW - Working Papers with number iewwp235.

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Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:235

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Keywords: Hate crime; right-wing extremism; unemployment; cost of unemployment;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Alan B. Krueger & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1995. "A Statistical Analysis of Crime Against Foreigners in Unified Germany," Working papers 95-15, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  2. Fischer, Stanley, 1981. "Towards an understanding of the costs of inflation: II," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 5-41, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Fertig, Michael & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2002. "The Perception of Foreigners and Jews in Germany - A Structural Analysis of a Large Opinion Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 431, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  4. Raphael, Steven & Winter-Ember, Rudolf, 2001. "Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 259-83, April.
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  5. Stanley Fischer & Franco Modigliani, 1978. "Towards an understanding of the real effects and costs of inflation," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer, vol. 114(4), pages 810-833, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-59, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. repec:fth:prinin:358 is not listed on IDEAS
  8. Yang, Bijou & Lester, David, 1994. "Crime and unemployment," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 215-222. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Fehr, Ernst & Singer, Tania, 2005. "The Neuroconomics of Mind Reading and Empathy," CEPR Discussion Papers 5128, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Simon Luechinger & Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2008. "Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed?: Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap between the Public and Private Sectors," SOEPpapers 106, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Thomas Siedler, 2006. "Family and Politics: Does Parental Unemployment Cause Right-Wing Extremism?," IZA Discussion Papers 2411, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  4. Thomas Siedler, 2007. "Does Parental Unemployment Cause Right-Wing Extremism?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 666, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  5. repec:ese:iserwp: is not listed on IDEAS
  6. Falk, Armin & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2005. "The Behavioural Effects of Minimum Wages," CEPR Discussion Papers 5115, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Fehr, Ernst & Fischbacher, Urs & Kosfeld, Michael, 2005. "Neuroeconomic Foundation of Trust and Social Preferences," CEPR Discussion Papers 5127, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Rothe, Thomas & Tinter, Stefanie, 2007. "Jugendliche auf dem Arbeitsmarkt : eine Analyse von Beständen und Bewegungen," IAB-Forschungsbericht 200704, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]. [Downloadable!]
  9. Salvador Barberà & Anke Gerber, . "A Note on the Impossibility of a Satisfactory Concept of Stability for Coalition Formation Games," IEW - Working Papers iewwp238, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Luechinger, Simon & Meier, Stephan & Stutzer, Alois, 2008. "Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed? Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap between the Public and the Private Sector," IZA Discussion Papers 3385, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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