IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/anp/en2004/149.html

Inequality And Criminality Revisited: Further Evidence From Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Bernadete Sarmiento Gutierrez
  • Mario Jorge Cardoso de Mendonça
  • Adolfo Sachsida
  • Paulo Roberto Amorim Loureiro

Abstract

The objective of this study is to shed light on the determinants of criminality in Brazil. In order to undertake it we performed an econometric model based in panel data analysis for Brazilian states: Among the major conclusions we have an important result that income inequality plays an important role in criminality. Results also showed that unemployment and urbanization are positively related to crime factors. Based in panel data GMM methodology we found the existence of "inertial effect" on criminality. Panel data GMM estimator was also used to control the existence of endogeneity related to the variable public security. In this case, the results showed that public security spending is effective to diminishes criminality. Contrary to the common wisdom, we cannot found evidence that poverty increases violent crime. Finally considering the results from the Granger causality tests, it was possible to show that inequality causes crime in fact and not the contrary, what supports that the income inequality in an inequivocous determinant of criminality.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Bernadete Sarmiento Gutierrez & Mario Jorge Cardoso de Mendonça & Adolfo Sachsida & Paulo Roberto Amorim Loureiro, 2004. "Inequality And Criminality Revisited: Further Evidence From Brazil," Anais do XXXII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 32nd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 149, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    • Handle: RePEc:anp:en2004:149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.anpec.org.br/encontro2004/artigos/A04A149.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sodik Dwi Purnomo & Doni Adi Supriyo & Rusito Rusito & Teguh Anindito & Wahyu Hariadi & Damar Jati, 2023. "How Economic Indicator Drive Crime? Empirical Study in Developing Country, Indonesia," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 13(3), pages 94-99, May.
    2. Eva-Maria Egger, 2022. "Internal Migration and Crime in Brazil," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(1), pages 223-259.
    3. René Cabral & André Varella Mollick & Eduardo Saucedo, 2016. "Violence in Mexico and its effects on labor productivity," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 56(2), pages 317-339, March.
    4. Amit Ghosh & Salvador Contreras, 2022. "Local Banking Market Frictions and Youth Crime: Evidence from Bank Failures," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 43-75, February.
    5. Castillo-Manzano, José I. & Castro-Nuño, Mercedes & Fageda, Xavier, 2015. "Are traffic violators criminals? Searching for answers in the experiences of European countries," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 86-94.
    6. William M. Bowen & Haifeng Qian, 2017. "State spending for higher education: Does it improve economic performance?," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 7-23, March.
    7. Dartanto, Teguh & Otsubo, Shigeru, 2013. "Measurements and Determinants of Multifaceted Poverty:Absolute, Relative, and Subjective Poverty in Indonesia," Working Papers 54, JICA Research Institute.
    8. Michal Brzezinski, 2013. "Top income shares and crime," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 309-315, March.
    9. Tiago Freire, 2015. "City of God Redux: Inequality, Migration, and Violent Crime in Brazil between 1980 and 2000," ERSA conference papers ersa15p658, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Luiz G A Alves & Haroldo V Ribeiro & Ervin K Lenzi & Renio S Mendes, 2013. "Distance to the Scaling Law: A Useful Approach for Unveiling Relationships between Crime and Urban Metrics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-8, August.
    11. Christopher Kuruvilla Mathen & Siddhartha Chattopadhyay & Sohini Sahu & Abhijit Mukherjee, 2025. "Economic inequality and crime across cities in India: Evidence using nighttime lights data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(8), pages 1-13, August.
    12. Manash Ranjan Gupta & Priya Brata Dutta, 2024. "Crime, efficiency of labour and trade: a theoretical analysis," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 105-136, June.
    13. Pazzona, Matteo, 2024. "Revisiting the Income Inequality-Crime Puzzle," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    14. Marcelo Castro & Cesar Tirso, 2023. "The impacts of the age of majority on the exposure to violent crimes," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 983-1023, February.
    15. Kausik Chaudhuri & Payel Chowdhury & Kevin Reilly, 2013. "A New Perspective on Violent Crime Burden Index: Evidence from Indian Districts," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 771-789, January.
    16. Jawadi, Fredj & Mallick, Sushanta K. & Idi Cheffou, Abdoulkarim & Augustine, Anish, 2021. "Does higher unemployment lead to greater criminality? Revisiting the debate over the business cycle," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 448-471.
    17. Alves, Luiz G.A. & Ribeiro, Haroldo V. & Mendes, Renio S., 2013. "Scaling laws in the dynamics of crime growth rate," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(11), pages 2672-2679.
    18. Muhammad Khalid Anser & Zahid Yousaf & Abdelmohsen A. Nassani & Saad M. Alotaibi & Ahmad Kabbani & Khalid Zaman, 2020. "Dynamic linkages between poverty, inequality, crime, and social expenditures in a panel of 16 countries: two-step GMM estimates," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, December.
    19. Yu Liu & Thomas M. Fullerton Jr. & Nathan J. Ashby, 2013. "Assessing The Impacts Of Labor Market And Deterrence Variables On Crime Rates In Mexico," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 669-690, October.
    20. Pedro Henrique Batista de Barros & Isadora Salvalaggio Baggio & Alysson Luiz Stege & Cleise Maria de Almeida Tupich Hilgemberg, 2019. "Economic development and crime in Brazil: a multivariate and spatial analysis," Revista Brasileira de Estudos Regionais e Urbanos, Associação Brasileira de Estudos Regionais e Urbanos (ABER), vol. 13(1), pages 1-22.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:anp:en2004:149. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Rodrigo Zadra Armond (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/anpecea.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.