Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Paper Series,
Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research
No 16/2023: Does Wealth Inhibit Criminal Behavior? Evidence from Swedish Lottery Winners and Their Children
David Cesarini (), Erik Lindqvist (), Robert Östling () and Christofer Schroeder ()
Additional contact information
David Cesarini: New York University
Erik Lindqvist: Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Postal: SOFI, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Robert Östling: Stockholm School of Economics
Christofer Schroeder: European Central Bank
Abstract: There is a well-established negative gradient between economic status and crime, but its underlying causal mechanisms are not well understood. We use data on four Swedish lotteries matched to data on criminal convictions to gauge the causal effect of financial windfalls on player`s own crime and their children`s delinquency. We estimate a positive but statistically insignificant effect of lottery wealth on players`own conviction risk. Our estimates allows us to rule out effects one fifth as large as the cross-sectional gradient between income and crime. We also estimate a less precise null effect of parental lottery wealth on child delinquency.
Keywords: economics of crime; juvenile crime; income and wealth inequality
Language: English
46 pages, November 21, 2023
Full text files
FULLTEXT01.pdfFull text
- Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research
- Ordering Working Papers
- Home page for this series
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Daniel Rossetti ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
This page generated on 2024-03-03 22:15:56.