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Homicide in black and white

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  • O'Flaherty, Brendan
  • Sethi, Rajiv

Abstract

African-Americans are six times as likely as white Americans to die at the hands of a murderer, and roughly seven times as likely to murder someone. Young black men are 15 times as likely to be murdered as young white men. This disparity is historic and pervasive, and cannot be accounted for by individual characteristics. Culture-of-violence and tail-of-the-distribution theories are also inadequate to explain the geographic and demographic pattern of the disparity. We argue that any satisfactory explanation must take into account the fact that murder can have a preemptive motive: people sometimes kill simply to avoid being killed. As a result, disputes can escalate dramatically in environments (endogenously) perceived to be dangerous, resulting in self-fulfilling expectations of violence for particular dyadic interactions, and significant racial disparities in rates of murder and victimization. Because of strategic complementarity, small differences in fundamentals can cause large differences in murder rates. Differences in the manner in which the criminal justice system treats murders with victims from different groups, and differences across groups in involvement in street vice, may be sufficient to explain the size and pattern of the racial disparity.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Urban Economics.

Volume (Year): 68 (2010)
Issue (Month): 3 (November)
Pages: 215-230

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Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:68:y:2010:i:3:p:215-230

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905

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Keywords: Homicide Racial disparities Crime;

References

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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.:
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  1. Sandeep Baliga & Tomas Sjostrom, 2003. "Arms Races and Negotiations," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000766, David K. Levine.
  2. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1995. "Crime and Social Interactions," NBER Working Papers 5026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Roland G. Fryer & Paul S. Heaton & Steven D. Levitt & Kevin M. Murphy, 2005. "Measuring the Impact of Crack Cocaine," NBER Working Papers 11318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. O'Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2010. "The racial geography of street vice," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 270-286, May.
  5. W. Kip Viscusi & Joseph E. Aldy, 2003. "The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World," NBER Working Papers 9487, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2002. "The Social Multiplier," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1968, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  7. Lance Lochner & Enrico Moretti, 2001. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports," NBER Working Papers 8605, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. O'Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2008. "Racial stereotypes and robbery," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 511-524, December.
  9. Brendan O'Flaherty & Rajiv Sethi, 2007. "Peaceable kingdoms and war zones: Pre-emption, ballistics and murder in Newark," Discussion Papers 0708-02, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  10. Jonathan Guryan, 2004. "Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 919-943, September.
  11. Amitabh Chandra, 2003. "Is the Convergence of the Racial Wage Gap Illusory?," NBER Working Papers 9476, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Gautier, Pieter A. & Siegmann, Arjen & Van Vuuren, Aico, 2009. "Terrorism and attitudes towards minorities: The effect of the Theo van Gogh murder on house prices in Amsterdam," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 113-126, March.
  13. Bjerk, David, 2009. "Thieves, Thugs, and Neighborhood Poverty," IZA Discussion Papers 4470, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  14. Shubham Chaudhuri & Rajiv Sethi, 2008. "Statistical Discrimination with Peer Effects: Can Integration Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 579-596, 04.
  15. Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 2005. "The Value of Health and Longevity," NBER Working Papers 11405, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  16. David A. Weiner & Byron F. Lutz & Jens Ludwig, 2009. "The Effects of School Desegregation on Crime," NBER Working Papers 15380, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Kristin F. Butcher & Anne Morrison Piehl, 2006. "Why Are Immigrants' Incarceration Rates So Low? Evidence on Selective Immigration, Deterrence, and Deportation," Departmental Working Papers 200605, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
  18. Oecd, 2006. "DAC Peer Review of the United States," OECD Journal on Development, OECD Publishing, vol. 7(4), pages 95-200.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Carlos Medina & Jorge Andrés Tamayo & Christian Posso, 2013. "The Effect of Adult Criminals’ Spillovers On the Likelihood of Youths Becoming Criminals," Borradores de Economia 755, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
  2. Dur, Robert & van der Weele, Joël, 2011. "Status-Seeking in Criminal Subcultures and the Double Dividend of Zero-Tolerance," IZA Discussion Papers 5484, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Brendan O’Flaherty & Rajiv Sethi, 2008. "The Racial Geography of Vice," Discussion Papers 0809-11, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  4. Bjerk, David, 2010. "Thieves, thugs, and neighborhood poverty," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 231-246, November.

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