IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/riceco/15-004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Transition from School to Jail: Youth Crime and High School Completion among Black Males

Author

Listed:
  • Merlo, Antonio

    (Rice University)

  • Wolpin, Kenneth I.

    (Rice University)

Abstract

In this paper, we study the relationship among schooling, youth employment and youth crime. The framework, a multinomial discrete choice vector autoregression, provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic interactions among a youth's schooling, work and crime decisions and arrest and incarceration outcomes. We allow for observable initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity, measurement error and missing data. We use data from the NLSY97 on black male youths starting from age 14. The estimates indicate important roles both for heterogeneity in initial conditions and for stochastic events that arise during one's youth in determining outcomes as young adults.

Suggested Citation

  • Merlo, Antonio & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 2015. "The Transition from School to Jail: Youth Crime and High School Completion among Black Males," Working Papers 15-004, Rice University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecl:riceco:15-004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economics.rice.edu/rise/working-papers/transition-school-jail-youth-crime-and-high-school-completion-among-black-males
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Heckman & Flavio Cunha, 2007. "The Technology of Skill Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 31-47, May.
    2. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2005. "Simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic, nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 39-54, January.
    3. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Katalin Evers & Lutz Bellmann, 2015. "Collective Bargaining and Innovation," Working Paper series 15-07, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    4. Sickles, Robin C. & Williams, Jenny, 2008. "Turning from crime: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 158-173, July.
    5. Jeffrey Grogger, 1995. "The Effect of Arrests on the Employment and Earnings of Young Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 51-71.
    6. Giulio Fella & Giovanni Gallipoli, 2014. "Education and Crime over the Life Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1484-1517.
    7. Michael P. Keane & Robert M. Sauer, 2010. "A Computationally Practical Simulation Estimation Algorithm For Dynamic Panel Data Models With Unobserved Endogenous State Variables," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(4), pages 925-958, November.
    8. 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.
    9. Lance Lochner, 2007. "Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 444-460, March.
    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. 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.
    12. Ann Dryden Witte & Helen Tauchen, 1994. "Work and Crime: An Exploration Using Panel Data," NBER Working Papers 4794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Eric D. Gould & Bruce A. Weinberg & David B. Mustard, 2002. "Crime Rates And Local Labor Market Opportunities In The United States: 1979-1997," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 45-61, February.
    14. Susumu Imai & Kala Krishna, 2004. "Employment, Deterrence, And Crime In A Dynamic Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(3), pages 845-872, August.
    15. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1997. "The Career Decisions of Young Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(3), pages 473-522, June.
    16. Hausman, J. A. & Abrevaya, Jason & Scott-Morton, F. M., 1998. "Misclassification of the dependent variable in a discrete-response setting," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 239-269, September.
    17. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2003. "Are Idle Hands the Devil's Workshop? Incapacitation, Concentration, and Juvenile Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1560-1577, December.
    18. Jeffrey R. Kling, 2006. "Incarceration Length, Employment, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 863-876, June.
    19. 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.
    20. Jenny Williams & Robin C. Sickles, 2002. "An Analysis of the Crime as Work Model: Evidence from the 1958 Philadelphia Birth Cohort Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(3), pages 479-509.
    21. Grogger, Jeff, 1998. "Market Wages and Youth Crime," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(4), pages 756-791, October.
    22. Witte, Ann D & Tauchen, Helen, 1994. "Work and Crime: An Exploration Using Panel Data," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 49(Supplemen), pages 155-167.
    23. Joel Waldfogel, 1994. "The Effect of Criminal Conviction on Income and the Trust "Reposed in the Workmen"," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(1), pages 62-81.
    24. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 2001. "The Effect of Parental Transfers and Borrowing Constraints on Educational Attainment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1051-1103, November.
    25. Zvi Eckstein & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 1999. "Why Youths Drop Out of High School: The Impact of Preferences, Opportunities, and Abilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(6), pages 1295-1340, November.
    26. Hjalmarsson, Randi, 2008. "Criminal justice involvement and high school completion," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 613-630, March.
    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. 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.
    2. Limor Golan & Rong Hai & Hayley Wabiszewski, 2021. "The Impact of Juvenile Conviction on Human Capital and Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers 2021-011, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    3. Shannon Ward & Jenny Williams & Jan C. van Ours, 2021. "Delinquency, Arrest and Early School Leaving," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 411-436, April.
    4. Mezza, Alvaro & Buchinsky, Moshe, 2021. "Illegal drugs, education, and labor market outcomes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 223(2), pages 454-484.
    5. Shannon Ward & Jenny Williams, 2015. "Does Juvenile Delinquency Reduce Educational Attainment?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(4), pages 716-756, December.
    6. James Ades & Jyoti Mishra, 2021. "Education and Crime across America: Inequity’s Cost," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-22, July.
    7. M. Antonella Mancino, 2022. "A Search Model Of Early Employment Careers And Youth Crime," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(1), pages 329-390, February.
    8. Lance Lochner, 2010. "Education Policy and Crime," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 465-515, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ham, John C. & Woutersen, Tiemen, 2011. "Calculating Confidence Intervals for Continuous and Discontinuous Functions of Estimated Parameters," IZA Discussion Papers 5816, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Ostergaard Larsen, Britt & Kristensen, Nicolai, 2017. "Building Human or Criminal Capital? School Peer Effects on Future Offending," IZA Discussion Papers 11124, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Ning Fu & Donna B. Gilleskie & Shawn Kneipp & Todd Schwartz & Amanda Sheely, "undated". "The Effects of a Criminal Record on Employment, Welfare Participation, and Health: A Model of Long-Run Behaviors and Outcomes when Lagged Variables are Missing Non-Randomly," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 076c7c96e69042ea8a73646bf, Mathematica Policy Research.
    12. Mancino, Maria Antonella & Navarro, Salvador & Rivers, David A., 2016. "Separating state dependence, experience, and heterogeneity in a model of youth crime and education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 274-305.
    13. Shakeeb Khan & Maria Ponomareva & Elie Tamer, 2019. "Identification of Dynamic Panel Binary Response Models," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 979, Boston College Department of Economics.
    14. Dutta, Nabamita & Jana, Dipparna & Kar, Saibal, 2020. "Does state-level per capita income affect juvenile delinquency? An empirical analysis for Indian states," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 109-120.

    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. Antonio Merlo & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2008. "The Transition from School to Jail: Youth Crime and High School Completion Among Black Males, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 09-002, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 16 Jan 2009.
    2. Mancino, Maria Antonella & Navarro, Salvador & Rivers, David A., 2016. "Separating state dependence, experience, and heterogeneity in a model of youth crime and education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 274-305.
    3. Meghir, Costas & Palme, Mårten & Schnabel, Marieke, 2011. "The Effect of Education Policy on Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 6142, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. 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.
    5. Md. Abdur Rahman Forhad, 2021. "Minimum Dropout Age and Juvenile Crime in the USA," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 378-405, June.
    6. Lance Lochner, 2010. "Education Policy and Crime," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 465-515, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. Aoki, Yu, 2014. "More Schooling, Less Youth Crime? Learning from an Earthquake in Japan," IZA Discussion Papers 8619, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. 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.
    10. Paolo Buonanno, 2006. "Crime, Education and Peer Pressure," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 96(5), pages 89-110, September.
    11. 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.
    12. Stephen Machin & Olivier Marie & Sunčica Vujić, 2012. "Youth Crime and Education Expansion," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 13(4), pages 366-384, November.
    13. 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.
    14. Gaurav Khanna & Carlos Medina & Anant Nyshadham & Jorge Tamayo & Nicolas Torres, 2023. "Formal Employment and Organised Crime: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Colombia," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(654), pages 2427-2448.
    15. 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.
    16. Susumu Imai & Kala Krishna, 2001. "Employment, Dynamic Deterrence and Crime," NBER Working Papers 8281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Nordin , Martin, 2014. "Does Eligibility for Tertiary Education Affect Crime Rates? Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 2014:14, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    18. van Ours, Jan C. & Williams, Jenny & Ward, Shannon, 2015. "Bad Behavior: Delinquency, Arrest and Early School Leaving," CEPR Discussion Papers 10755, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Paolo Buonanno & Leone Leonida, 2006. "Education and crime: evidence from Italian regions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(11), pages 709-713.
    20. Stephen Machin & Olivier Marie & Sunčica Vujić, 2011. "The Crime Reducing Effect of Education," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 463-484, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ecl:riceco:15-004. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dericus.html .

    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.