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Crime and Unemployment: Evidence from Europe

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Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of unemployment on crime using a country-level panel data set from Europe that contains consistently-measured crime and police force statistics. Unemployment has a positive impact on monetary crimes, and instrumenting unemployment with the exchange rate produces larger estimates than those obtained from OLS specifications. The unemployment rate is decomposed into various components such as gender-specific and education-specific unemployment. The analysis of specific population sub-groups� unemployment reveals that about 65% of the overall impact of unemployment on crime is attributable to the unemployment of males with low education.

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  • Duha Tore Altindag, 2009. "Crime and Unemployment: Evidence from Europe," Departmental Working Papers 2009-13, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2009-13
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    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General

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