What Part of the Income Distribution does Matter for Explaining Crime? The Case of Columbia

Serie

  • DELTA Working Papers

Resumen

  • Economic theory suggests that inequality should influence crime positively. Yet, the evidence in favor of that hypothesis is weak. Pure cross-sectional analyses show significant positive effects but cannot control for fixed effects. Time series and panel data point to a variety of results, but few turn out being significant. The hypothesis maintained in this paper is that it is a specific part of the distribution, rather than the overall distribution as summarized by conventional inequality measures, that is most likely to influence the rate of (property) crime in a given society. Using a simple theoretical model and panel data in 7 Colombian cities over a 15 year period, a structural model is proposed that permits identifying the precise segment of the population whose relative income best explains time changes in crime.

fecha de publicación

  • 2003

Líneas de investigación

  • Crime Economics
  • Income Distribution
  • Inequality

Issue

  • abril 2003