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Unemployment and Right-wing Extremist Crime

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Abstract

It is frequently argued that unemployment plays a crucial role for the occurrence of right- wing extremist crimes. We empirically test this hypothesis using data from Germany. We find that right-wing criminal activities occur more frequently when unemployment is high. The big difference in right-wing crime between East and West German states can mostly be attributed to differences in unemployment. This finding reinforces the importance of unemployment as an explanatory factor for right-wing crime and questions explanations based solely on the different socialization in former communist East Germany and the liberal West German states.

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  • Armin Falk & Andreas Kuhn & Josef Zweimüller, 2009. "Unemployment and Right-wing Extremist Crime," NRN working papers 2009-16, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    • Handle: RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2009_16
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hate crime; right-wing extremism; unemployment; cost of unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J69 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Other
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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