Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Crime and benefit sanctions

Contents:

Author Info

  • Stephen Machin

    ()

  • Olivier Marie

Abstract

In this paper we look at the relationship between crime and economic incentives in a different way to other workin this area. We look at changes in unemployment benefits and the imposition of benefit sanctions as a means ofstudying the way that people on the margins of crime may react to economic incentives. The paper relies on aquasiexperimental setting induced by the introduction of the Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) in the UK in October1996. We look at crime rates in areas more and less affected by the policy change before and after JSAintroduction. In the areas more affected by the tougher benefit regime crime rose by more. These were also theareas with higher outflows from unemployment and particularly to people dropping off the register but not intowork, education/training or onto other benefits. Areas that had more sanctioned individuals also experiencedhigher crime rates after the introduction of JSA. As such the benefit cuts and sanctions embodied in the JSAappear to have induced individuals previously on the margins to engage in crime. Thus there appears to havebeen an unintended policy consequence, associated with the benefit reform, namely higher crime.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10258-006-0010-9
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Springer in its journal Portuguese Economic Journal.

Volume (Year): 5 (2006)
Issue (Month): 2 (August)
Pages: 149-165

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:spr:portec:v:5:y:2006:i:2:p:149-165

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/10258/index.htm

Order Information:
Web: http://link.springer.de/orders.htm

Related research

Keywords: Crime; Benefit sanctions; Jobseekers allowance; JEL Classification H00; J65;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
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.:
as in new window
  1. repec:fth:prinin:300 is not listed on IDEAS
  2. Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1999. "The causes and consequences of longterm unemployment in Europe," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 47, pages 3085-3139 Elsevier.
  3. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," Working Papers 680, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
  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. Machin, Stephen & Alan Manning & Lupin Rahman, 2003. "Where Minimum Wage Bites Hard: The Introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage to a Low Wage Sector," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 145, Royal Economic Society.
  6. Steve Machin & Costas Meghir, 2000. "Crime and economic incentives," IFS Working Papers W00/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  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 521-65, May-June.
  8. 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.
  9. Grogger, Jeff, 1998. "Market Wages and Youth Crime," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(4), pages 756-91, October.
  10. Atkinson, Anthony B & Micklewright, John, 1991. "Unemployment Compensation and Labor Market Transitions: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1679-1727, December.
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 in new window

Cited by:
  1. Denis Fougère & Francis Kramarz & Julien Pouget, 2007. "Youth Unemployment and Crime in France," Working Papers 2007-33, Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistique.
  2. Mustard, David B., 2010. "How Do Labor Markets Affect Crime? New Evidence on an Old Puzzle," IZA Discussion Papers 4856, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Olmo Silva, 2004. "Entrepreneurship: Can the Jack-of-All-Trades Attitude be Aquired?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0665, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:portec:v:5:y:2006:i:2:p:149-165

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Guenther Eichhorn) or (Christopher F Baum).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.