IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/oapubs/10197-157.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An econometric analysis of burglary in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Denny
  • Reamonn Lydon
  • Colm Harmon

Abstract

This paper outlines an econometric model of the level of burglary in Ireland between 1952 and 1998. We explain the evolution of the trend in Burglary in terms of demographic factors: in this case the share of young males in the population, the macro-economy in the form of consumer expenditure and two characteristics of the criminal justice system : the detection rate for these crimes and the size of the prison population. The share of young males is associated with higher levels of these crimes. Imprisonment and detection act as powerful forces for reducing crimes, the effects of aggregate consumption are more difficult to pin down but we show that higher spending is associated with more lucrative but probably fewer crimes. One somewhat surprising result is that we were unable to find any robust effect from direct measures of labour market activity such as unemployment rates or wage levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Denny & Reamonn Lydon & Colm Harmon, 2004. "An econometric analysis of burglary in Ireland," Open Access publications 10197/157, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/157
    File Function: First version, 2004
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raphael, Steven & Winter-Ember, Rudolf, 2001. "Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 259-283, April.
    2. Scorcu, Antonello E. & Cellini, Roberto, 1998. "Economic activity and crime in the long run: an empirical investigation on aggregate data from Italy, 1951-1994," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 279-292, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Steven D. Levitt, 1996. "The Effect of Prison Population Size on Crime Rates: Evidence from Prison Overcrowding Litigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 319-351.
    5. Engle, R. F. & Granger, C. W. J. (ed.), 1991. "Long-Run Economic Relationships: Readings in Cointegration," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198283393.
    6. Levitt, Steven D, 1998. "Why Do Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or Measurement Error?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 353-372, July.
    7. 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.
    8. H. Naci Mocan & Hope Corman, 2000. "A Time-Series Analysis of Crime, Deterrence, and Drug Abuse in New York City," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 584-604, June.
    9. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1977. "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 452-458, June.
    10. Rottman, David B., 1980. "Crime in The Republic of Ireland: Statistical Trends and their Interpretation," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number GRS102, June.
    11. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Google Hot Trends: Crime Mapping
      by Martin Ryan in Geary Behaviour Centre on 2009-05-01 16:15:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brosnan, Stephen, 2016. "The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Ireland from 2003-2012," MPRA Paper 74118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Brosnan, Stephen, 2017. "The Impact of Sports Participation on Crime in England between 2012 and 2015," MPRA Paper 78596, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Stephen Brosnan, 2018. "The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Ireland from 2003-2012," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 127-143.
    4. Eoin O’Sullivan & Ian O’Donnell, 2003. "Imprisonment and the Crime Rate in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 34(1), pages 33-64.
    5. Jonathan Torres‐Tellez & Alberto Montero Soler, 2023. "After the economic crisis of 2008: Economic conditions and crime in the last decade for the case of Spain," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 82(3), pages 223-239, May.

    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. Entorf, H. & Winker, P., 2008. "Investigating the drugs-crime channel in economics of crime models: Empirical evidence from panel data of the German States," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 8-22, March.
    2. Maurice J. G. Bun & Richard Kelaher & Vasilis Sarafidis & Don Weatherburn, 2020. "Crime, deterrence and punishment revisited," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 2303-2333, November.
    3. Entorf, Horst & Winkler, Peter, 2001. "The economics of crime: investigating the drugs-crime channel: empirical evidence from panel data of the German states," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-37, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Horst Entorf & Peter Winker, 2001. "The Economics of Crime: Investigating the Drugs-Crime Channel," Law and Economics 0108001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Guido Travaglini, 2003. "Property Crime and Law Enforcement in Italy. A Regional Panel Analysis 1980-95," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 62(2), pages 211-240, October.
    6. Naci Mocan & Kaj Gittings, 2010. "The Impact of Incentives on Human Behavior: Can We Make it Disappear? The Case of the Death Penalty," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 379-418, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. repec:ucn:wpaper:10197/157 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Entorf, Horst & Spengler, Hannes, 2008. "Is Being 'Soft on Crime' the Solution to Rising Crime Rates? Evidence from Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 3710, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Paul R. Zimmerman, 2010. "The Economics of Capital Punishment and Deterrence," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Lauridsen, Jørgen T. & Zeren, Fatma & Ari, Ay?E, 2015. "Is Crime in Turkey Economically Rational?/¿Es económicamente racional el crimen en Turquía?," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 33, pages 37-52, Enero.
    11. Christophe Bellégo & Joeffrey Drouard, 2019. "Does It Pay to Fight Crime? Evidence From the Pacification of Slums in Rio de Janeiro," Working Papers 2019-08, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    12. Thomas A. Garrett & Lesli S. Ott, 2008. "City business cycles and crime," Working Papers 2008-026, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    13. Lauridsen, Jørgen T. & Zeren, Fatma & Ari, Ayse, 2014. "Is crime in Turkey economically rational?," Discussion Papers on Economics 3/2014, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    14. Bruno S. Frey, 2011. "Punishment – and Beyond," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 5(2), June.
    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. H. Naci Mocan & R. Kaj Gittings, 2001. "Pardons, Executions and Homicide," NBER Working Papers 8639, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Corman, Hope & Mocan, Naci, 2005. "Carrots, Sticks, and Broken Windows," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 235-266, April.
    18. Mejía, Daniel & Restrepo, Pascual, 2016. "Crime and conspicuous consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-14.
    19. Lauridsen, Jorgen, 2010. "Is Polish Crime Economically Rational?," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 40(2), pages 1-7.
    20. Kelaher, Richard & Sarafidis, Vasilis, 2011. "Crime and Punishment Revisited," MPRA Paper 28213, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Marcel Fafchamps & Bart Minten, 2004. "Insecurity and welfare," CSAE Working Paper Series 2004-31, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.

    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:ucn:oapubs:10197/157. 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: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.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.