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The Safest Suburbs In The Mountain West, 2023, Ivan Sun, Zachary Billot, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Cities & Metros

This fact sheet presents data from the Smart Asset report, “America’s Safest Suburbs – 2023 Study,” which examines the 370 safest suburbs in the United States and the 35 most affordable safest suburbs. This fact sheet focuses on data for the nine safest suburbs and most affordable safe suburbs in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah ranking among the top 100 safest suburbs in the United States.

Exploring The Relationship Between Load Shedding And Crime In Gauteng, Bhavesh Ram

Master's Theses

This study investigates the impact of load shedding, a recurring power outage phenomenon in South Africa, on crime rates in the densely populated Gauteng province. Using a novel dataset that combines Eskom's load shedding schedules with detailed crime statistics from 2015 to 2022, a fixed-effects regression model is employed to examine the relationship between blackout hours and various crime categories. Findings reveal that while load shedding does not significantly affect overall crime rates, it significantly increases the incidence of contact crimes and sexual offenses, particularly during daylight hours. Additionally, our results provide evidence that load shedding diminishes the ability of …

The Effect Of The Minimum Wage On Crime, Abbie Natkin

Economics Honors Projects

Evidence shows that education, labor market conditions for ex-offenders, and wages influence crime rates. The relationship between wages and crime specifically, has interesting potential policy implications, especially in arguments for increasing the minimum wage. Economists speculate that increasing the minimum wage may help reduce crime by increasing wages and thus increasing the opportunity cost of committing crime, making it riskier and less necessary for people to supplement their incomes through illegal avenues. Using crime data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports and minimum wage data from Vaghul & Zipperer (2016), I employ a two-way fixed effects framework to analyze the …

Essays On The Economics Of Law And Crime, Zachary J. Porreca

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The first chapter examines the connection between gentrification and urban violence. I demonstrate a positive and plausibly causal relationship between urban redevelopment and gun violence in Philadelphia. As the underlying mechanism, I focus on gentrification's displacement effect on local drug markets. Treating the city as a spatial network of city blocks and using two-way fixed effects differences-in-differences estimators, I show the gentrification of one block increases violence across the surrounding neighborhood. I find that some 2,400 (8%) of Philadelphia's shootings between the years 2011 and 2020 can be attributed to spillover effects from the gentrification of drug blocks. This effect …

Guns And Fatal Police Shootings: Accuracy Of Firearm Prevalence Proxies In A Panel Data Analysis, Corin Elmore

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the relationship between gun prevalence and fatal police shootings in the United States. Specifically, the study assesses the validity of using FSS (Firearm Suicides Per Total Suicides) as a proxy for gun prevalence. It examines whether FBI background check data can be a more reliable alternative. Through a panel data analysis, the study provides moderate evidence that FBI background check data performs better than FSS as a proxy for gun prevalence and that the relationship between firearm prevalence and fatal police shootings is positive. Additionally, the study finds that instrumenting FSS with background check data to account …

Three Essays In Applied Microeconomics: Philly Style, Alexander Christian Marsella

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

My dissertation analyzes several contemporary policy-based and institutional occurrences in an urban setting to help guide further advancements in reducing violence, drug overdose deaths, and other unhealthy behaviors that city governments look to curb. Several recent developments in Philadelphia offer a promising setting for studying policies that have broad implications.

Chapter 1 examines the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative on violent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of educational, public-safety, and quality-of-life improvement grants were disbursed from 2014 onward. My difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects and cluster bootstrapped standard errors …

The Effect Of Monitoring And Crowds On Crime And Law Enforcement: A Natural Experiment From European Football, Brad R. Humphreys, Alexander Marsella, Levi Perez

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Technological advancements like the presence of smart phones and body cameras have led to increased monitoring of police, but little evidence exists on their impact. We address these problems using data on fouls from football matches in five European football leagues over six seasons. This period contains exogenous changes in monitoring rule enforcers through introduction of Video Assistant Referee review and limited "bystanders" from Covid-19 restrictions. Results from difference-in-differences models estimated separately for each league indicate that both events influenced the number of fouls called with substantial heterogeneity across leagues and home/away teams.

The Spatial Associations Between Crime And Economy In Chicago 2015-2020, Hongtao Huang

Honors Capstones

The severity of the crime is often the most intuitive reflection of whether a region is safe and the top factor for the public when evaluating a region. Economist's list of the safest cities in seven major North American cities, Chicago was ranked at six, just above Dallas. Chicago scored the lowest in personal security, which is closely tied to the crime. Against the backdrop of higher unemployment and prices, this study is interested in how property-based crimes are related to the economic decline in Chicago geographically. The study used the heterogeneity analysis tool Geodetector to investigate the correlation between …

Mississippi Crime And Corrections: The Effects Of House Bill 585 On Crime And Incarceration Rates, Madisyn Flammia

Honors Theses

The state of Mississippi’s historically high incarceration rate peaked in the year 2013, when it was the second highest nationwide. To combat this problem, House Bill 585 was passed into law in 2014. The law consisted of multiple reforms, which were part of an effort to toughen sentencing for violent offenders and reduce severity of punishment for non-violent criminals, with the aim of reducing incarceration and refocusing prison space for violent crimes. I employed difference in differences and synthetic control methododologies to examine the effects of House Bill 585 on crime and imprisonment rates. My results revealed that House Bill …

What Drives The Fracking Boom Crime Relationship? A Fixed-Effects Analysis Of Crime During The Pennsylvania Fracking Boom, Webster Batista-Lin

Masters Theses

The rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing(fracking) over the past two decades has led to an increasing interest in the relationship between natural resource booms and crime. Since the onset of the fracking boom, numerous anecdotal accounts and an increasing body of empirical studies have suggested that fracking has a significant, positive impact on crime. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship are poorly understood. This study uses a high-resolution dataset and a unique, fixed-effects approach to decompose the effect that fracking has on crime into increases due to the introduction of new wells and increases due to the presence of existing …

Essays On Crime And Law, Morgan Elaine Stockham

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Civil law and public policy often are related to crime in complex and interesting ways. The following dissertation explores the intersections of divorce law and public policy with criminal outcomes. Within my first chapter, we attempt to identify the causal effect of wages on a prosecutor’s effort by studying an exogenous salary increase in New York. We measure the performance by the likelihood that a conviction is upheld when appealed. If the efficiency wage theory explains behavior, then the exogenous wage shock should entice better performance. Alternatively, if individuals who hold office are motivated primarily by an intrinsic motivations rather …

Crime, Crisis And Economic Growth: An Investigation Of Socio-Economic Determinants Of Crimes In The Indian States, Ankita Thapa

Masters Theses

This paper investigates the impact of socio-economic conditions on five major crime heads from 2001-2019 using a panel data set for the Indian states. The paper focus on the great recession of 2008-09, economic growth of the states, and deterrence variables. The paper employed two estimation procedures: panel Fixed-Effect and two-stage least square-fixed effect (2SLS-FE). The 2SLS-FE is preferred over the fixed effect method, where poverty is treated as an endogenous variable with higher education and social sector expenditure as instrumental variables. A dummy variable is used for the period of the great recession. A square of state GDP per …

Long Term Effects Of Cash Transfer Programs In Colombia, Orazio Attanasio, Lina Cardona-Sosa, Carlos Medina, Costas Meghir, Christian Posso

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Conditional Cash transfer (CCT) programs have been shown to have positive effects on a variety of outcomes including education, consumption and health visits, amongst others. We estimate the long-run impacts of the urban version of Familias en Acción, the Colombian CCT program on crime, teenage pregnancy, high school dropout and college enrollment using a Regression Discontinuity design on administrative data. ITT estimates show a reduction on arrest rates of 2.7pp for men and a reduction on teenage pregnancy of 2.3pp for women. High school dropout rates were reduced by 5.8pp and college enrollment was increased by 1.7pp for men.

The Cost Of Crime: A Study On Human Trafficking, Kirsten Krug

Applied Economics Theses

Human trafficking is a billion dollar industry that impacts hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. Each year the United States alone spends millions of dollars on law enforcement programs designated to combat human trafficking.

This thesis examines the impact of those programs as deterrents for individuals who are willing to commit this type of violent crime, as well as why they might commit crime in the first place. In addition to providing an economic analysis of the impact of arrest and jail as deterrents on trafficking, the thesis will also look into what may cause an individual to fall …

Part 4: All In: Casinos, Online Betting And The Future Of Gambling In Hampton Roads, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

In 1987, Virginia voters approved the state lottery, bringing legalized gambling to the Commonwealth. Fast forward to 2021: Virginians can now buy lottery tickets online, place sports bets on their phones and wager in historical horse racing parlors. Now, with casinos opening soon in Norfolk and Portsmouth, as well as Bristol, Danville and, likely, Richmond, we discuss the benefits and costs of casinos in Hampton Roads

The Effects Of Admission To Jail On Crime Rate In Mclean County, Illinois, Derek Conley

Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development—Student Research

The relationship between crime and incarceration is growing in interest in the United States. The United States incarceration rate is often double or triple the rate of other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The hardline approach the United States has taken on crime has many citizens and academics questioning its effectiveness on achieving safer communities. Traditional theory suggests incarcerating individuals for deviant behavior reduces the crime rate through the mechanisms of incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution. However, some scholars believe concentration of incarceration in neighborhoods disrupts the social fabric of the neighborhood and produces the opposite of …

Essays On Criminal Behaviour, Human Capital Formation, And Mental Health, Diego F. Salazar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My thesis consists of three chapters that contribute to the study of some of the negative consequences of incarceration and their relation with the life-cycle choices of juvenile offenders.

Chapter 2 studies the causal relationship between incarceration and mental health problems. In this chapter, I use different matching estimators to identify the causal effects of incarceration over several dimensions of mental health using data from a survey of juvenile offenders, the Pathways to Desistance (PTD) survey. My findings show that being incarcerated for the first time, between 17 and 18 years old, increases depression by at least 0.18 standard deviations …

Minimum Wage And National Culture, Zhongyu Cao

Theses and Dissertations

Minimum wage adjustment affects economic agent behaviors and leads to an unintended side effect s. The first chapter of the dissertation studies the impact of the minimum wage level on the college enrollment. Using institution-level data from IPEDS, the results show that the real minimum wage level has significant and diverse effects on different types of enrollment. The results are robust using several alternative specifications and individual level analysis. The second chapter of the dissertation addresses another side effect of the minimum wage law: crime. Using U.S. state-level arrest and offense data and agency-level offense data, this chapter provides empirical …

Proposition 47 And Crime: A Difference In Differences Analysis Of Incarceration Rates And Crime Using Border Counties, Brian J. Fischer

Theses and Dissertations

California passed Proposition 47 by vote and changed the way the state punishes drug and theft. I find an increase in crime using a difference in differences model by computing the change in thefts with the change in inmates. This effect sides with anecdotal claims and disagrees with empirical studies.

State Failure In Venezuela, Marcus Littman

Master's Theses

The role of the state is to provide political goods such as security and an environment conducive to economic growth. The Venezuelan state is failing to provide both security and conditions capable of producing economic growth. The government has exacerbated both by enacting failed policies. I measure the economic crisis in Venezuela based on the rates of inflation, falling foreign currency reserves, the food and medical supply shortage, falling government spending, and negative GDP growth. I measure the security crisis based on the escalating rate of kidnapping, human trafficking, drug sales, smuggling, theft, gun distribution, and homicide. In this thesis, …

The Academic Effects Of Chronic Exposure To Neighborhood Violence, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Agustina Laurito, Johanna Lacoe, Patrick Sharkey, Ingrid Gould Ellen

Center for Policy Research

We estimate the causal effect of repeated exposure to violent crime on test scores in New York City. We use two distinct empirical strategies; value-added models linking student performance on standardized exams to violent crimes on a student’s residential block, and a regression discontinuity approach that identifies the acute effect of an additional crime exposure within a one-week window. Exposure to violent crime reduces academic performance. Value added models suggest the average effect is very small; approximately -0.01 standard deviations in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. RD models suggest a larger effect, particularly among children previously exposed. The marginal …

Can Noncompliant Behavior Explain Racial/Ethnic Disparities In The Use Of Force By The Nypd? An Econometric Analysis Of New York's Stop-And-Frisk, Omari-Khalid Rahman

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze spatiotemporal variations in NYPD policing patterns in an attempt to identify the causal mechanism(s) driving the observed racial/ethnic disparities; specifically, it addresses questions of how changing neighborhood demographics influence the decision-making of NYPD officers/precincts as it relates to their controversial Stop-and-Frisk policy.

Immigration, Employment Opportunities, And Criminal Behavior, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens, Sarah Bohn

Matthew Freedman

Immigration, Employment Opportunities, And Criminal Behavior [Online Appendix], Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens, Sarah Bohn

Matthew Freedman

Crime, Institutions And Sector-Specific Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Isabel Ruiz, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster

Luisa Blanco

In this article, we explore how crime and institutions affect the flow of capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Latin American and Caribbean countries in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors during the 1996-2010 period. We use three different variables related to violent crime: homicides, crime victimization, and an index of organized crime. We find that there is a correlation between the institutional and crime variables, where the significance of institutional variables tends to disappear when the crime variables are added to the model. We find that higher crime victimization and organized crime are associated with …

Crime, Institutions And Sector-Specific Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Isabel Ruiz, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster

School of Public Policy Working Papers

In this article, we explore how crime and institutions affect the flow of capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Latin American and Caribbean countries in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors during the 1996-2010 period. We use three different variables related to violent crime: homicides, crime victimization, and an index of organized crime. We find that there is a correlation between the institutional and crime variables, where the significance of institutional variables tends to disappear when the crime variables are added to the model. We find that higher crime victimization and organized crime are associated with …

The Criminal Justice Response To Policy Interventions: Evidence From Immigration Reform, Sarah Bohn, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens

Matthew Freedman

Discounting And Criminals' Implied Risk Preferences, Murat C. Mungan, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

It is commonly assumed that potential offenders are more responsive to increases in the certainty than increases in the severity of punishment. An important implication of this assumption within the Beckerian law enforcement model is that criminals are risk-seeking. This note adds to existing literature by showing that offenders who discount future monetary benefits can be more responsive to the certainty rather than the severity of punishment, even when they are risk averse, and even when their disutility from imprisonment rises proportionally (or more than proportionally) with the length of the sentence.

Your Friends And Neighbors: Localized Economic Development And Criminal Activity, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens

Matthew Freedman

We exploit a sudden shock to demand for a subset of low-wage workers generated by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program in San Antonio, Texas to identify the effects of localized economic development on crime. We use a difference-in-difference methodology that takes advantage of variation in BRAC’s impact over time and across neighborhoods. We find that appropriative criminal behavior increases in neighborhoods where a fraction of residents experienced increases in earnings. This effect is driven by residents who were unlikely to be BRAC beneficiaries, implying that criminal opportunities are important in explaining patterns of crime.

Forthcoming in the …

Crime And Economic Growth In Developing Countries: Evidence From Pakistan, Arsalan Ahmad, Sharafat Ali, Najid Ahmad

Sharafat Ali

This study investigates the impact of crime on economic growth of Pakistan by using time series data from 1980 to 2011. Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test is applied to check the stationary of variables. It is hypothesized that increase in crime leads to less economic growth in Pakistan. Autoregressive Distributive lag (ARDL) to cointegration is used to find short and long run relationship between crime and Economic growth. Results reveal that crime has negative and significant impact on economic growth in the long run, whereas in short run the effect of crime on economic growth is negative but insignificant. ECM …