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Why are criminals less educated than non-criminals? Evidence from a cohort of young Australian twins

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Author Info
Dinand Webbink ()
Pierre Koning ()
Suncica Vujic
Nick Martin

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Abstract

Many studies find a strong negative association between crime and education. This raises the question whether crime reduces investment in human capital or whether education reduces criminal activity. This paper investigates this question by using fixed effect estimation on data of Australian twins.

We find that early arrests (before the age of 18) have a strong effect on human capital accumulation. In addition, we find that education decreases crime. However, controlling for early arrests and early behaviour problems reduces the estimated effect of human capital on crime to less than on third of the previously estimated association. From this, we conclude that the strong association between human capital and crime is mainly driven by the effect of early criminal behaviour on educational attainment. The strong detrimental effects of early criminal behaviour become also transparent if we consider the estimated effects of early arrests on three measures of crime.

We find large effects of early criminal behaviour on participation in crime later on. This suggests that programs that succeed in preventing early criminal behaviour might yield high social and private returns.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis in its series CPB Discussion Papers with number 114.

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Date of creation: Nov 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cpb:discus:114

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Related research
Keywords: Education; crime; causal effects;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

References listed on IDEAS
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    Other versions:
  2. Richard B. Freeman, 1996. "Why Do So Many Young American Men Commit Crimes and What Might We Do About It?," NBER Working Papers 5451, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Bound, John & Solon, Gary, 1999. "Double trouble: on the value of twins-based estimation of the return to schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 169-182, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Ashenfelter, Orley & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Estimates of the Economic Returns to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1157-73, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Aigner, Dennis J., 1973. "Regression with a binary independent variable subject to errors of observation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 49-59, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Tauchen, Helen & Witte, Ann Dryden & Griesinger, Harriet, 1994. "Criminal Deterrence: Revisiting the Issue with a Birth Cohort," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(3), pages 399-412, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Griliches, Zvi, 1979. "Sibling Models and Data in Economics: Beginnings of a Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages S37-64, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Miller, Paul & Mulvey, Charles & Martin, Nick, 2006. "The return to schooling: Estimates from a sample of young Australian twins," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 571-587, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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