Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, Uppsala University
No 2004:3:
Does Public Spending on Youths Affect Crime Rates?
Lars Lindvall ()
Abstract: Two important determinants of crime rates in economic
theories of crime are deterrent effects and legal income opportunities. For
at least two reasons, youth crimes do not fit into this picture since: 1)
most youths do not work 2) deterrent effects, in terms of punishment, are
non existent or reduced for youths. Understanding the processes behind
youth crimes is important for the reduction of crime both in the short and
the long run. This paper explores the role of public spending on youths and
crime rates. Using a panel of 261 Swedish municipalities the effects on
four crime rates of leisure related municipality expenditure and
municipality expenditure on upper secondary school are explored using
non-linear fixed effect models. The main findings of the paper are: 1)
there exists statistically significant effects of the two types of spending
on crime rates 2) there is a trade off between fighting different crimes,
i.e. spending that reduces one type of crime might increase another type 3)
the effects differ, both in direction and magnitude, between different
types of municipalities, e.g. rural vs. urban 4) the effects are not
constant, but rather increasing/decreasing in spending level.
Keywords: Youth crime; public sepnding; leisure; school; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: H39; K49; (follow links to similar papers)
40 pages, November 15, 2003
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