IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v6y1999i11p753-757.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unobserved heterogeneity bias when estimating the economic model of crime

Author

Listed:
  • Todd Cherry

Abstract

Using unique and unpublished panel data from selected US cities, the paper investigates the consequences of ignoring unobserved heterogeneity in the unit of observation when estimating the economic model of crime. Results confirm that neglecting to control for unobserved heterogeneity overstates the ability of sanctions to deter criminal activity. Further, this upward bias is found to vary significantly across crime types. Interestingly, heterogeneity is insignificant in the tightly reported crimes of murder and auto-theft while being significant in assault, robbery, burglary and larceny where individuals and police have greater discretion in reporting.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd Cherry, 1999. "Unobserved heterogeneity bias when estimating the economic model of crime," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(11), pages 753-757.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:6:y:1999:i:11:p:753-757
    DOI: 10.1080/135048599352349
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/135048599352349&magic=repec&7C&7C8674ECAB8BB840C6AD35DC6213A474B5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/135048599352349?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. Kenneth L. Avio & C. Scott Clark, 1978. "The Supply of Property Offences in Ontario: Evidence on the Deterrent Effect of Punishment," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, February.
    3. Dale O. Cloninger, 1975. "The Deterrence Effect of Law Enforcement: An Evaluation of Recent Findings and Some New Evidence," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 323-335, July.
    4. Viscusi, W Kip, 1986. "The Risks and Rewards of Criminal Activity: A Comprehensive Test of Criminal Deterrence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 317-340, July.
    5. Cornwell, Christopher & Trumbull, William N, 1994. "Estimating the Economic Model of Crime with Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(2), pages 360-366, May.
    6. H. W. Mui & M. M. Ali, 1997. "Economic analysis of crime and punishment: an Asian case," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 261-265.
    7. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 521-565, May-June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Worrall, John L. & Schram, Pamela & Hays, Eric & Newman, Matthew, 2004. "An analysis of the relationship between probation caseloads and property crime rates in California counties," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 231-241.
    2. Todd Cherry, 2001. "Financial penalties as an alternative criminal sanction: Evidence from panel data," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(4), pages 450-458, December.
    3. John L. Worrall, 2004. "Funding Collaborative Juvenile Crime Prevention Programs," Evaluation Review, , vol. 28(6), pages 471-501, December.
    4. Worrall, John L., 2004. "The effect of three-strikes legislation on serious crime in California," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 283-296.
    5. Lau, Evan & Hamzah, Siti Nur Zahara & Habibullah, Muzafar, 2019. "The Economic of Deterrence: A Wrong Policy or A Misplaced Strategy?," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 53(1), pages 105-119.

    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. Philip A. Curry & Anindya Sen & George Orlov, 2016. "Crime, apprehension and clearance rates: Panel data evidence from Canadian provinces," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 481-514, May.
    2. Horst Entorf & Hannes Spengler, 2005. "Ökonometrie der Kriminalität," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 58(16), pages 13-25, August.
    3. Eide, Erling & Rubin, Paul H. & Shepherd, Joanna M., 2006. "Economics of Crime," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 2(3), pages 205-279, December.
    4. Spengler, Hannes, 2005. "Eine panelökonometrische Überprüfung der ökonomischen Theorie der Kriminalität mit deutschen Bundesländerdaten," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 150, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    5. Altindag, Duha T., 2012. "Crime and unemployment: Evidence from Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 145-157.
    6. Lucia dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Donato Masciandaro & Margherita Saraceno, 2020. "Organized crime, suspicious transaction reporting and anti-money laundering regulation," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(12), pages 1761-1775, December.
    7. Fernandez, Carmen & Ley, Eduardo & Steel, Mark F. J., 2001. "Benchmark priors for Bayesian model averaging," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 381-427, February.
    8. Isaac Ehrlich, 1996. "Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 43-67, Winter.
    9. David L. Sollars & Bruce L. Benson & David W. Rasmussen, 1994. "Drug Enforcement and the Deterrence of Property Crime Among Local Jurisdictions," Public Finance Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 22-45, January.
    10. Deiana, C, 2016. "Local Labour Market Effects of Unemployment on Crime Induced by Trade Shocks," Economics Discussion Papers 16529, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    11. Patricia Funk & Peter Kugler, 2003. "Identifying Efficient Crime‐Combating Policies by VAR Models: The Example of Switzerland," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(4), pages 525-538, October.
    12. Hope Corman & H. Naci Mocan, 1996. "A Time-Series Analysis of Crime and Drug Use in New York City," NBER Working Papers 5463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Siwach, Garima, 2018. "Unemployment shocks for individuals on the margin: Exploring recidivism effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 231-244.
    14. H. Naci Mocan & Hope Corman, 2000. "A Time-Series Analysis of Crime, Deterrence, and Drug Abuse in New York City," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 584-604, June.
    15. Víctor Hugo Torres Preciado, 2017. "Desempleo y criminalidad en los estados de la frontera norte de México: un enfoque espacial bayesiano de vectores auto-regresivos. (Unemployment and crime in the Northern-border states of Mexico: a sp," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(1), pages 25-58, May.
    16. Javier Parra Domínguez & Isabel María García Sánchez & Luis Rodríguez Domínguez, 2015. "Relationship between police efficiency and crime rate: a worldwide approach," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 203-223, February.
    17. Jorgen Lauridsen, 2009. "Is Baltic Crime Economically Rational?," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 9(1), pages 31-38, July.
    18. Halicioglu, Ferda & Andrés, Antonio R. & Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Modeling crime in Japan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1640-1645.
    19. H. Naci Mocan & Stephen C. Billups & Jody Overland, 2005. "A Dynamic Model of Differential Human Capital and Criminal Activity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(288), pages 655-681, November.
    20. Povilas Lastauskas & Eirini Tatsi, 2017. "Spatial Nexus in Crime and Unemployement in Times of Crisis," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 39, Bank of Lithuania.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:apeclt:v:6:y:1999:i:11:p:753-757. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.