Inequality and violent crime: evidence from data on robbery and violent theft
This article argues that the link between income inequality and violent property crime might be spurious, complementing a similar argument in prior analysis by the author on the determinants of homicide. In contrast, Fajnzylber, Lederman & Loayza (1998; 2002a, b) provide seemingly strong and rob...
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| Tipo de documento: | Electrónico Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
2004
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| En: |
Journal of peace research
Año: 2004 |
| Acceso en línea: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Gargar...
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| Verificar disponibilidad: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Sumario: | This article argues that the link between income inequality and violent property crime might be spurious, complementing a similar argument in prior analysis by the author on the determinants of homicide. In contrast, Fajnzylber, Lederman & Loayza (1998; 2002a, b) provide seemingly strong and robust evidence that inequality causes a higher rate of both homicide and robbery/violent theft even after controlling for country-specific fixed effects. Our results suggest that inequality is not a statistically significant determinant, unless either country-specific effects are not controlled for or the sample is artificially restricted to a small number of countries. The reason why the link between inequality and violent property crime might be spurious is that income inequality is likely to be strongly correlated with country-specific fixed effects such as cultural differences. A high degree of inequality might be socially undesirable for any number of reasons, but that it causes violent crime is far from proven |
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| ISSN: | 1460-3578 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0022343305049669 |