IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jproda/v43y2015i1p13-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crime in India: specification and estimation of violent crime index

Author

Listed:
  • Kausik Chaudhuri
  • Payel Chowdhury
  • Subal Kumbhakar

Abstract

This paper addresses several important issues related to crime. First, we construct a violent crime index taking into account seven different types of crimes. We use an aggregator function to define a crime index that attaches crime-specific weights which can be interpreted as severity of each crime. These weights are estimated econometrically along with other parameters in the model thereby avoiding the problems associated with equally or arbitrary weighted aggregate crime index. Second, we utilize the aggregate crime index function to determine the impact of socio-economic variables on the overall (aggregated) crime, and further decompose them into crime-specific components. Third, in specifying the crime index we allow the possibility that crimes may be underreported and estimate crime underreporting using the stochastic frontier modeling approach. We use district level data from India for the census years 1981, 1991 and 2001. Our results fail to support the equally weighted crime index model and provide evidence of substantial underreporting. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Kausik Chaudhuri & Payel Chowdhury & Subal Kumbhakar, 2015. "Crime in India: specification and estimation of violent crime index," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 13-28, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jproda:v:43:y:2015:i:1:p:13-28
    DOI: 10.1007/s11123-014-0398-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11123-014-0398-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11123-014-0398-7?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. Sickles, Robin C. & Williams, Jenny, 2008. "Turning from crime: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 158-173, July.
    2. Abhiman Das & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2012. "Productivity and efficiency dynamics in Indian banking: An input distance function approach incorporating quality of inputs and outputs," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 205-234, March.
    3. Soares, Rodrigo R., 2004. "Development, crime and punishment: accounting for the international differences in crime rates," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 155-184, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Banerjee, Abhijit & Somanathan, Rohini, 2007. "The political economy of public goods: Some evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 287-314, March.
    6. Richard B. Freeman, 1996. "Why Do So Many Young American Men Commit Crimes and What Might We Do about It?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 25-42, Winter.
    7. Yan Shen & Cheng Hsiao & Hiroshi Fujiki, 2005. "Aggregate vs. disaggregate data analysis-a paradox in the estimation of a money demand function of Japan under the low interest rate policy," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(5), pages 579-601.
    8. 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.
    9. Richard B. Freeman, 1991. "Crime and the Employment of Disadvantaged Youths," NBER Working Papers 3875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lance Lochner, 2004. "Education, Work, And Crime: A Human Capital Approach," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(3), pages 811-843, August.
    11. Freeman, Richard B., 1999. "The economics of crime," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 52, pages 3529-3571, Elsevier.
    12. Brand, Sam & Price, Richard, 2000. "The economic and social costs of crime," MPRA Paper 74968, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & José A. Scheinkman, 1996. "Crime and Social Interactions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 507-548.
    14. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Lederman, Daniel & Loayza, Norman, 2002. "What causes violent crime?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1323-1357, July.
    15. Lakshmi Iyer & Anandi Mani & Prachi Mishra & Petia Topalova, 2012. "The Power of Political Voice: Women's Political Representation and Crime in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 165-193, October.
    16. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1975. "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 397-417, June.
    17. Iyengar, Radha, 2009. "Does the certainty of arrest reduce domestic violence? Evidence from mandatory and recommended arrest laws," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 85-98, February.
    18. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    19. Dan Usher, 1997. "Education as a Deterrent to Crime," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(2), pages 367-384, May.
    20. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1977. "Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Additional Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(4), pages 741-788, August.
    21. Lance Lochner & Enrico Moretti, 2004. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 155-189, March.
    22. Morgan Kelly, 2000. "Inequality And Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 530-539, November.
    23. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    24. Gibson, John & Kim, Bonggeun, 2008. "The effect of reporting errors on the cross-country relationship between inequality and crime," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 247-254, October.
    25. Demombynes, Gabriel & Ozler, Berk, 2005. "Crime and local inequality in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 265-292, April.
    26. Jean Drèze & Reetika Khera, 2000. "Crime, Gender, and Society in India: Insights from Homicide Data," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 26(2), pages 335-352, June.
    27. Patrick Bayer & Randi Hjalmarsson & David Pozen, 2009. "Building Criminal Capital behind Bars: Peer Effects in Juvenile Corrections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 105-147.
    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. Meena Badade & T. V. Ramanathan, 2022. "Probabilistic Frontier Regression Models for Count Type Output Data," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 20(1), pages 235-260, September.

    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. Kausik Chaudhuri & Payel Chowdhury & Kevin Reilly, 2013. "A New Perspective on Violent Crime Burden Index: Evidence from Indian Districts," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 771-789, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Paolo Buonanno, 2003. "The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime. A Review of the Literature," Working Papers 63, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2003.
    4. Paolo Buonanno, 2006. "Crime, Education and Peer Pressure," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 96(5), pages 89-110, September.
    5. Yamamura, Eiji, 2009. "Formal and informal deterrents of crime in Japan: Roles of police and social capital revisited," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 611-621, August.
    6. Paolo Buonanno, 2003. "Identifying the Effect of Education on Crime. Evidence from the Italian Regions," Working Papers 65, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2003.
    7. Altindag, Duha T., 2012. "Crime and unemployment: Evidence from Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 145-157.
    8. Akçomak, İ. Semih & ter Weel, Bas, 2012. "The impact of social capital on crime: Evidence from the Netherlands," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 323-340.
    9. Marcel Fafchamps & Bart Minten, 2004. "Insecurity and welfare," CSAE Working Paper Series 2004-31, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    10. Paolo Buonanno & Leone Leonida, 2006. "Education and crime: evidence from Italian regions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(11), pages 709-713.
    11. Paolo Buonanno & Daniel Montolio Estivill, 2005. "Identifying the Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Spanish Provinces," Working Papers in Economics 138, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    12. Adla Mokline, 2018. "Criminality, Human Capital and Economic Performance," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 8(4), pages 130-142, December.
    13. Buonanno, Paolo & Montolio, Daniel, 2008. "Identifying the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime across Spanish provinces," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 89-97, June.
    14. Bethencourt, Carlos & Kunze, Lars, 2014. "On the intergenerational nature of criminal behavior," MPRA Paper 58344, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.
    16. Peri Giovanni, 2004. "Socio-Cultural Variables and Economic Success: Evidence from Italian Provinces 1951-1991," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, September.
    17. Lakshmi Iyer & Anandi Mani & Prachi Mishra & Petia Topalova, 2012. "The Power of Political Voice: Women's Political Representation and Crime in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 165-193, October.
    18. Chao Fu & Nicolás Grau & Jorge Rivera, 2022. "Wandering astray: Teenagers' choices of schooling and crime," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), pages 387-424, May.
    19. Sofia Amaral & Sonia Bhalotra & Nishith Prakash, 2019. "Gender, Crime and Punishment: Evidence from Women Police Stations in India," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-309, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    20. Helen Tauchen, 2010. "Estimating the Supply of Crime: Recent Advances," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crime index; Underreporting; Aggregator function; C33; K42; O53;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

    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:kap:jproda:v:43:y:2015:i:1:p:13-28. 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.