Still unemployed, what next? Crime and unemployment duration
Abstract
In this paper, I study the relationship between unemployment benefits, labour market conditions
and crime in the light of increasing unemployment durations and temporary benefit
extensions in the US. First, I find a positive reduced form effect of the benefit extensions
on property crime. Second, I explore the mechanisms of the reduced form in an IV model
and find that higher unemployment and longer unemployment durations are linked to higher
property crime rates. These findings can rationalise the reduced form effect: Longer
benefit durations are linked to longer unemployment durations which in turn contribute to increased propensities for criminal activity.
Other description
JEL: J64, J65, K42
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2016-06Author
Bindler, Anna
Keywords
Crime
unemployment
unemployment duration
unemployment insurance
Publication type
report
ISSN
1403-2465
Series/Report no.
Working Papers in Economics
660
Language
eng
Metadata
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