Resource title

Unemployment and gang crime: could prosperity backfire?

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Resource description

Empirical evidence reveals that unemployment tends to increase property crime but that it has no effect on violent crime. To explain these facts, we examine a model of criminal gangs and suggest that there is a substitution effect between property crime and violent crime at work. In the model, non-monetary valuation of gang membership is private knowledge. Thus the leaders face a trade-off between less crime per member in large gangs and more crime per member in small gangs. Unemployment increases the relative attractiveness of large and less violent gangs engaging more in property crime.

Resource author

Panu Poutvaara, Mikael Priks

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Resource language

eng

Resource content type

text/html

Resource resource URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10419/25989

Resource license

Adapt according to the presented license agreement and reference the original author.