Education, Work, and Crime: A Human Capital Approach

This paper develops a model of crime in which human capital increases the opportunity cost of crime from foregone work and expected costs associated with incarceration. Older, more intelligent, and more educated adults should commit fewer street (unskilled) crimes. White collar crimes decline less (...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:  
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Lance Lochner (Autor)
Tipo de documento: Electrónico Libro
Lenguaje:Inglés
Acceso en línea: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Verificar disponibilidad: HBZ Gateway
Palabras clave:
Descripción
Sumario:This paper develops a model of crime in which human capital increases the opportunity cost of crime from foregone work and expected costs associated with incarceration. Older, more intelligent, and more educated adults should commit fewer street (unskilled) crimes. White collar crimes decline less (or increase) with age and education. Predictions for age-crime and education-crime relationships receive broad empirical support in self-report data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and arrest data from the Uniform Crime Reports. The effects of education, training, and wage subsidies, as well as enforcement policies on criminal behavior are discussed.