Document Type
Working Paper
Date of This Version
6-1-2009
Keywords
crime, wealth, Uniform Crime Reports
Abstract
Although theory suggests the relationship between crime and wealth is ambiguous, most empirical analyses estimate a monotonic relationship and find that wealth has negative effect on crime. Using two proxies for wealth (median income and poverty rate) and two types of crime (property and violent), we find a quadratic relationship is the best fit for our four crime-wealth groups. In general, the expected negative effect of wealth on crime only applies to wealthier counties. In poorer counties, wealth has an unexpected positive effect on crime. This result may be theoretically consistent, or an unintended byproduct of the Uniform Crime Reports data, which do not include unreported crime.
Working Paper Number
0907
Recommended Citation
Muroi, Chihiro and Baumann, Robert, "The Non-Linear Effect of Wealth on Crime" (2009). Economics Department Working Papers. Paper 36.
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/econ_working_papers/36