IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v49y1990i1p7-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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. 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.
    2. repec:mpr:mprres:2737 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1987. "Implicit Taxation in Lottery Finance," NBER Working Papers 2246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Becchetti, Leonardo & Solferino, Nazaria & Tessitore, Maria Elisabetta, 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.

    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, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. Mari Rege & Torbjørn Skardhamar & Kjetil Telle & Mark Votruba, 2009. "The effect of plant closure on crime," Discussion Papers 593, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    9. Entorf, Horst & Spengler, Hannes, 2000. "Socioeconomic and demographic factors of crime in Germany: Evidence from panel data of the German states," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 75-106, March.
    10. Tom Kirchmaier & Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi & Robert Witt, 2020. "Prices, Policing and Policy: The Dynamics of Crime Booms and Busts," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 1040-1077.
    11. Imrohoroglu, Ayse & Merlo, Antonio & Rupert, Peter, 2000. "On the Political Economy of Income Redistribution and Crime," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(1), pages 1-25, February.
    12. Jack Hirshleifer & Eric Rasmusen, 1992. "Are Equilibrium Strategies Unaffected by Incentives?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 4(3), pages 353-367, July.
    13. Maria Laura Di Tommaso & I. Shima & S. Strøm & F. Bettio, 2007. "As bad as it gets: well being deprivation of sexually exploited trafficked women," CHILD Working Papers wp10_07, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    14. H. Naci Mocan & Daniel I. Rees, 2005. "Economic Conditions, Deterrence and Juvenile Crime: Evidence from Micro Data," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 7(2), pages 319-349.
    15. Todd Sandler & John L. Scott, 1987. "Terrorist Success in Hostage-Taking Incidents," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(1), pages 35-53, March.
    16. Takuma Kunieda & Masashi Takahashi, 2022. "Inequality and institutional quality in a growth model," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 189-213, April.
    17. Matti Viren, 2001. "Modelling crime and punishment," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(14), pages 1869-1879.
    18. Raj Chetty, 2004. "Consumption Commitments, Unemployment Durations, and Local Risk Aversion," NBER Working Papers 10211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Milo Bianchi & Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Pinotti, 2012. "Do Immigrants Cause Crime?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1318-1347, December.
    20. Rasmusen, Eric, 1996. "Stigma and Self-Fulfilling Expectations of Criminality," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 519-543, October.

    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.