Crime control in Nigeria: how relevant is remittance inflow?

Purpose - This paper aims to draw on extant literature to ascertain the relevance of remittance receipts in improving the level of crime control in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses time series data spanning for a period of 1986–2017. It adopts dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS), vector auto regression impulse response function, variance decomposition and Toda and Yamamoto causality approach to analyse the data. Findings - The following findings are established: DOLS shows that remittance receipt has negative and significant impact on crime rate in Nigeria. The impulse response function indicates that a positive shock to the remittance inflows reduces the level of crime in Nigeria. Moreover, a positive shock to the crime rate decreases the remittance. This implies that both variables respond to each other. Toda and Yamamoto causality approach shows that there is unidirectional causality moving from remittance inflow to criminal activities in Nigeria. These results persist after considering other institutional variables. These findings support the previous evidences on remittances-crime nexus and as well support the opportunity cost theory of crime. Originality/value - Apart from being the first study in African region that evaluates the relevance of remittances in crime control, it also analyses the dynamics between crime rate and remittance receipts using time series econometrics which makes the study to be unique. The study shows that remittances can be used as part of toolkits for controlling criminal activities in Nigeria.