IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v49y1990i1p7-20.html

state Lotteries and Crime

Author

Listed:
  • John Mikesell
  • Maureen A. Pirog‐Good

Abstract

. The impact of having a state lottery on the rate of crime against property in that state is estimated. Arguments in the standard economic model of criminal activity employed here include the unemployment rate, real income per capita, presence of the death penalty in the state as a proxy for general severity of punishment, police officers per capita, the percentage of population between the ages of 5 and 24, and the presence of a state lottery. Because the decision of a state to operate a lottery may correlate with crime rates, a selectivity model was run to extract any bias, but no such bias was found. The analysis used data for the 50 states plus the District of Columbia from 1970 through 1984. The results suggest that presence of a state lottery is associated with a crime rate higher by about 3 percent, an effect both statistically significant and practically important.

Suggested Citation

  • John Mikesell & Maureen A. Pirog‐Good, 1990. "state Lotteries and Crime," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 7-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:49:y:1990:i:1:p:7-20
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1990.tb02254.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1990.tb02254.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1990.tb02254.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1987. "Implicit Taxation in Lottery Finance," NBER Working Papers 2246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. 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.
    3. repec:mpr:mprres:2737 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 521-565, May-June.
    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. Whitney, Marilyn D., 1991. "Factors Affecting The Demand For California Lottery Tickets," Working Papers 225863, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Leonardo Becchetti & Nazaria Solferino & Maria Elisabetta Tessitore, 2014. "A dynamic model of Gambling addiction with social costs: theory and policy solutions," AICCON Working Papers 133-2014, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    3. Richard B. Whitaker, 2007. "State Lotteries and Agency Costs: Hidden Costs to Nonparticipants," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 533-544, July.
    4. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    5. Cho-Min Lin & Kung-Cheng Lin, 2007. "The demand for lottery expenditure in Taiwan: a quantile regression approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(42), pages 1-11.
    6. Thomas Garrett, 2001. "An International Comparison and Analysis of Lotteries and the Distribution of Lottery Expenditures," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 213-227.

    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. van Ours, Jan C. & Williams, Jenny & Ward, Shannon, 2015. "Bad Behavior: Delinquency, Arrest and Early School Leaving," CEPR Discussion Papers 10755, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Khalil, Umair, 2017. "Do more guns lead to more crime? Understanding the role of illegal firearms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 342-361.
    3. Loureiro, Paulo R.A. & Mendonça, Mário Jorge Cardoso de & Moreira, Tito Belchior Silva & Sachsida, Adolfo, 2009. "Crime, economic conditions, social interactions and family heritage," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 202-209, September.
    4. Ibanez, Marcela & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2010. "A survey-based choice experiment on coca cultivation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 249-263, November.
    5. Maria Cracolici & Teodora Uberti, 2009. "Geographical distribution of crime in Italian provinces: a spatial econometric analysis," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 29(1), pages 1-28, February.
    6. Louis Hotte, 2005. "Natural-resource exploitation with costly enforcement of property rights," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(3), pages 497-521, July.
    7. Syed Shabib Haider & Ahmed Eatzaz, 2013. "Poverty, Inequality, Political Instability and Property Crimes in Pakistan: A Time Series Analysis," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1-2), pages 1-28, December.
    8. Malvina Bondy & Sefi Roth & Lutz Sager, 2020. "Crime Is in the Air: The Contemporaneous Relationship between Air Pollution and Crime," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(3), pages 555-585.
    9. Mari Rege & Torbjørn Skardhamar & Kjetil Telle & Mark Votruba, 2009. "The effect of plant closure on crime," Discussion Papers 593, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    10. Arghya Ghosh & Peter E. Robertson & Marie-Claire Robitaille, 2016. "Does Globalisation Affect Crime? Theory and Evidence," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(10), pages 1482-1513, October.
    11. Robert Witt, 2005. "Do Players React To Sanction Changes? Evidence From The English Premier League," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(4), pages 623-640, September.
    12. Corvalan, Alejandro & Pazzona, Matteo, 2019. "Persistent commodity shocks and transitory crime effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 110-127.
    13. Max Gillman, 2021. "Income tax evasion: tax elasticity, welfare, and revenue," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 533-566, June.
    14. Abdul Saboor & Shumaila Sadiq & Atta Ullah Khan & Gulnaz Hameed, 2017. "Dynamic Reflections of Crimes, Quasi Democracy and Misery Index in Pakistan," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 31-45, August.
    15. Adla Mokline, 2018. "Criminality, Human Capital and Economic Performance," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 8(4), pages 130-142, December.
    16. repec:hic:wpaper:196 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Sickles, Robin C. & Williams, Jenny, 2008. "Turning from crime: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 158-173, July.
    18. Brosnan, Stephen, 2016. "The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Ireland from 2003-2012," MPRA Paper 74118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2021. "Juvenile Punishment, High School Graduation, and Adult Crime: Evidence from Idiosyncratic Judge Harshness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 34-47, March.
    20. M. Martin Boyer, 2007. "Resistance (to Fraud) Is Futile," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 461-492, June.
    21. Brushwood, James & Dhaliwal, Dan & Fairhurst, Douglas & Serfling, Matthew, 2016. "Property crime, earnings variability, and the cost of capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 142-173.

    More about this item

    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:bla:ajecsc:v:49:y:1990:i:1:p:7-20. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    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.