Does crime deter South Africans from self-employment?

The very high crime rate in South African cities is often argued to be the main reason for the country's small share of business ownership and self-employment. This paper revisits this hypothesis. We estimate the effect of crime on business ownership and performance using a matched dataset of census, survey and police data. In contrast to previous studies, which take into account perceived rather than actual crime and often focus on specific geographic areas, we do not find robust evidence that high crime rates have a negative impact on business ownership. Even though our estimate of the effect of crime is statistically significant and negative, it is economically small. Further, we find no evidence for a negative effect of actual crime on sales, profits and investment of informal businesses. This may imply that the low share of business ownership and self-employment in South Africa must have other reasons. These results may also suggest that crime may not be in general a serious threat for small businesses in low and middle-income countries, however, this needs further empirical research.     

Compulsory schooling laws and school crime

Extensive literature demonstrates that compulsory schooling laws improve educational attainment, well-being, civic involvement, and labour market outcomes. However, at-risk youth incapacitated to schools may impact the learning environment and school safety. The purpose of this article is to study whether raising the minimum dropout age (MDA) requirement above 16 increases crime committed within US public high schools. A difference-in-difference estimation exploits changes in state-level MDA laws over time and indicates that schools in states that raise their MDA requirement to 18 incur more overall crime relative to schools in states that do not, while no effect on overall crime is identified when the MDA requirement is raised to 17. Furthermore, these effects persist for 4 years after passage and more intensely in metropolitan areas. Coupling this research with existing literature suggests that when the MDA requirement is raised to 18, only a small portion of the observed reduction in juvenile crime is displaced to schools. Analysis by category of crime reveals schools incur more physical attacks, no change in illegal drug and property crimes, and fewer violent crimes in states that raise their MDA requirement to 18, while illegal drug crimes increase in states that raise their MDA requirement to 17.     

Crime during the business cycle: urban–rural differences

Despite the abundant literature on how crime evolves over the business cycle, no consensus has arisen whether crime increases or decreases during recessions. The literature provides both positive and negative associations between the crime rate and the unemployment rate, a commonly used proxy for the business cycle. This study revisits this issue and uses county-level data from 1990 to 2013. It allows for differences as to how unemployment relates to both property crime and violent crime depending on the size of the counties. We find evidence of a positive association between unemployment and property crime that strengthens with county size. The results show the same pattern for violent crime but are statistically weaker. Our findings suggest that the positive association between property crime and unemployment that others have found is largely driven by more populous areas.     

Measuring the impact of crime on house prices

This paper uses data on over 2800 house sales in Jacksonville, FL to estimate the impact of crime on house prices. A GIS programme is used to develop neighbourhood characteristics that are unique to each observation. Crime data, available for 89 police beats are assigned to each observation. Weighting the seriousness of offences by the cost of crime to victims is used as an alternative to the customary measures of the number of index crimes. The cost of crime has virtually no impact on house prices overall, but homes are highly discounted in high crime areas.     

Price effects of multimarket contact among movie chains in small US metropolitan areas

Movie theater chains are ubiquitous in major metropolitan areas of the US, with generally two or more of these large chains present. However in smaller metropolitan areas, we see far more variation in the role of these chains. This allows for an opportunity to see whether multimarket contact (MMC) among these firms has an impact on movie pricing in these smaller markets. In this paper, data on movie pricing, market structure, and income and population characteristics are obtained for 79 small metropolitan areas–those with under 250,000 people–which are not part of larger “consolidated” metropolitan areas. A crude measure of MMC is found to indeed be related to price increases in the smallest of these markets.     

Venture capital,innovation, and growth: evidence from Chinese metropolitan data

Using panel data from 282 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2015, we estimate the impact of venture capital (VC) on innovation, employment, and payroll in metropolitan areas. Controlling for endogeneity, VC investments are significantly positively related to metropolitan innovation, employment, and payroll in a fixed effects panel regression and dynamic GMM estimation. Using the number of IPOs (Initial public offerings) in the city as an instrumental variable to again control for endogeneity, VC remains significant. Our results show that VC is significantly contributing to the metropolitan economy as a whole by supporting innovation, creating jobs, and generating wealth in the local cities.     

基于动态GMM模型的北京都市圈聚集效应研究

本文基于2000年-2017年北京都市圈的面板数据,利用动态GMM估计方法分析了北京都市圈及都市圈内各圈层的集聚效应。研究表明：(1)总体上看,北京都市圈的人口聚集与经济增长呈现先上升下降的倒U型关系,当前北京都市圈的人口规模已经超过最优化点；(2)分圈层来看,人口规模的持续增长在北京都市圈核心圈层和紧密圈层中更多的表现为拥挤效应,即对经济增长带来消极影响,而在机会圈层中则更多的表现为集聚效应,显著促进产出增长。未来,北京都市圈核心圈层和紧密圈层向机会圈层的人口纾解有利于提升北京都市圈整体的发展均衡性。     

城乡居民主观幸福差异及其影响因素研究——以成都市为例

在对成都市433名城区、郊区和农村居民的结构式访问基础上,以"整体生活满意度"和"具体生活满意度"作为主观幸福的核心维度,运用方差分析、多元回归分析方法,对城乡居民的主观幸福差异及其影响因素进行了分析。城乡居民主观幸福在一些维度上存在明显差异,在另一些维度上没有显著差异;城乡居民存在着增进和损害其各自主观幸福的条件和因素,这些条件和因素包括工作状况、家庭收入、居住条件、家庭生活、人际关系、闲暇活动、健康状况、生活城市等。     

Violent crime and female victimization: evidence from metropolitan regions in South Korea

In the economics of crime literature, victimization by crime has received less attention than the supply side of crime. This article investigates the relationship between violent crime and female victimization. We show that violent crime increases with both the overall female exposure and female proportion in the victim-target group. Potential interactions between these female characteristics and income inequality are also shown to influence the incidence of violent crime. Empirically, we introduce proxies for female characteristics that better reflect our hypotheses – for example, young unmarried female-headed households (for exposure to crime) and new job gains among females (for economic status). Using a panel of South Korean metropolitan regions, 2000–2011, we find that a certain limited change in these female characteristics could account for as much as 16% of violent crime.     

Measuring the effectiveness of voluntary emission reduction programmes

This paper examines the evaluation of state environmental policies aimed at reducing ground level ozone in order to meet air quality standards set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Several states with metropolitan areas that violate federal air quality regulations have adopted voluntary emission reduction programmes. These programmes focus on emissions from mobile sources, with the chief source being the automobile. States are allowed to claim credit towards bringing their metro areas closer to compliance with regulations only if they can provide credible evidence that these voluntary programmes are successful in reducing emissions. A model is developed to forecast aggregate traffic volumes so that one can assess the impact of the programme in reducing traffic flows during ‘Ozone Action Days’. Background information on the difficulties of measuring the ozone problem and on the recent policies adopted by the US EPA is provided. Using data from the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area, the accuracy of the model is demonstrated and preliminary analysis of whether the programmes which began in the summer of 1998 has had the desired impact is provided.     

Reworking the Wage Curve: Exploring the consistency of the model across time,space and demographic group

This paper extends Blanchflower & Oswald's (1994) work on the wage curve to the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The wage curve is more elastic in US metropolitan areas than prior research shows for the nation as a whole, and the wage curve varies over the business cycle, becoming more elastic in periods of higher unemployment. The most striking finding is that black workers have a more elastic wage curve than do white workers. Estimating the wage curve with the non-employment rate, a measure of underemployment, shows elasticities that are substantially higher than for wage curves estimated with the unemployment rate. This trend further increases the negative effects on pay for blacks, who are more likely than white workers to be underemployed.     

Policy tolerance of economic crime? An empirical analysis of the effect of counterfeiting on Italian trade

Some governments seem ambivalent towards economic crime because, on the one hand, there are adverse effects on competition and legal businesses; on the other hand, there are benefits through (shadow) employment and income in less-developed areas, as well as benefits through relations of political clientage. We focus on counterfeiting and its economic effects on trade in Italy during the economic crisis. Using a newly built regional dataset and a dynamic panel model, we find evidence of the dual impact of counterfeiting. The production (and exchange) of fake goods depresses the legal market that relies on intellectual property rights but supports shadow-economic activities for the benefit of illegal workers, criminal organisations, and political clientele. We show that the negative effects outweigh the positive effects.     

The impact of the biotechnology industry on local economic development in the Boston and San Diego metropolitan areas

High-technology/knowledge-intensive industries have become of increasing importance as sources of job growth and revenue to communities seeking to develop their economies. Communities want these industries so that they can be as economically vigorous as possible. However, although high-tech industries such as biotechnology are coveted as drivers of economic development, the local development impact of these clusters of regional innovation is not entirely positive. This is especially true with regard to the impact upon the low and semi-skilled populations. In some regions, the new growth generated by high-tech clusters has converted relatively inexpensive open space into haphazard commercial and industrial use that has contributed to sprawl, transportation congestion, lack of affordable housing, and gentrification. These problems are particularly evident in the Boston and San Diego metropolitan areas, which rank as the second and third largest U.S. biotechnology clusters respectively. This paper seeks to gauge the local economic development impact—especially with regard to the labor and real estate markets—of the biotechnology clusters in the San Diego and Boston metropolitan areas.     

Food environment and weight outcomes: a stochastic frontier approach

Food environment includes supermarkets, restaurants, warehouse clubs and supercentres and other food outlets. As such, it can affect weight outcomes through healthy food-access cost and availability, which in turn shape eating styles and habits. This article evaluates the impact of food environment on weight outcomes through a stochastic frontier approach (SFA) that comprehensively includes various components of the food environment. The model is estimated using body mass indexes (BMIs) as the dependent variable and demographics and food environment data from New England counties as explanatory variables. Empirical results indicate that supercentres and limited service restaurants are positively associated with weight gain, while full service restaurants are negatively associated with BMIs. In metropolitan counties, the presence of full and limited service restaurants has a significant impact on BMIs; in non-metropolitan counties, these establishments do not, except in those adjacent to metropolitan areas. Empirical results also validate SFA is a more appropriate specification than the standard linear model. In addition, SFA allows us to rank counties and identify targets for effective policy interventions. An ordered logit model of weight status is estimated with the same explanatory variables, confirming that the directions of the effects of the food environment components are similar.     

CRIME,DETERRENCE AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN ENGLAND AND WALES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS*

This paper uses aggregate data from 42 police-force areas over 12 years to test predictions of Becker's economic model of crime. The effects of measures for deterrence on the incidence of three types of acquisitive criminal activity (burglary, theft, robbery) in England and Wales are explored. Mixed support for the Becker model emerges. The growth in unemployment is seen to impact positively on two of the three types of criminal activity examined. Per capita household income is seen to have a negative effect on the recorded rates of burglary and theft, but there is some evidence that the income variable is a proxy for the effects of unemployment. Poor housing conditions and the relative youth of the population were also found to play a role in the determination of criminal activity.     

地区经济差距与人口流动:基于七国大都市区人口分布的比较研究

大都市区是一国人口的吸纳池。我国东部大都市区对人口的吸纳作用小,各大都市区的郊区和所辖县,以及多数大都市区的市区尚有很大的潜力和空间吸纳外来人口。鼓励包括中西部在内的农村剩余劳动力向东部大都市市区及郊区迁移,是一条减少地区和城乡经济差距,实现农村劳动力转移的有效途径。     

Crime and economic growth: A case study of Manaus,Brazil

Brazil became the seventh largest economy in the world in 2012. In the same year, the country was responsible for 13% of all worldwide murders. Despite the economic advances, crime is increasing over time in the country. This study explores the impact of organized crime on local economies, focusing on the case of Manaus, Brazil, and the emergence of the criminal group Família do Norte (FDN). We employ a synthetic control method to analyze the economic effects of the FDN's presence in Manaus. The findings reveal a significant negative impact on the city's economic growth and prosperity, with Manaus experiencing a 2% per year lower GDP per capita compared to what it would have been without the FDN. Robustness checks confirme this result, showing how organized crime can disrupt the country's economic advances.     

CRIME AND LOCAL LABOR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOW‐SKILLED WORKERS: EVIDENCE USING JAPANESE PREFECTURAL PANEL DATA

This paper examines the link between crime and labor market opportunities in Japan. To consider this link, we estimate the crime supply function first introduced by Becker using panel data for Japanese prefectures. The main empirical results are as follows. First, we expect that increasing the number of police will reduce crime, regardless of its type (i.e. whether referring to total crime, violent crime or larceny). Second, crime rates are generally lower in prefectures where a low‐skilled individual can find a job more easily. Third, the effects of wages for low‐skilled workers on crime, especially larceny, are significantly negative, whereas average wages in a prefecture do not appear to affect crime. Fourth, the prefectures with lower educational standards are expected to suffer more crime than other prefectures. Finally, prefectures with higher Gini coefficients on schooling years are also expected to suffer more crime than other prefectures.     

长江三角洲都市圈老人乡村休闲养老研究

近年来,长江三角洲都市圈越来越多的老人选择季节性移居乡村休闲养老,这种发展趋势是老龄化程度不断加深、城市养老资源不足和乡村休闲旅游快速发展共同作用的结果。通过对两个乡村休闲养老目的地的调查研究,结果表明：休闲养老目的地的形成可以分为在乡村旅游发展基础上的自发模式和企业投资促成的“联众模式”两种;乡村休闲养老者群体主要是低龄老人,选择乡村休闲养老目的地时主要受目的地自然环境、人文环境、休闲养老配套设施、生活基础设施、管理服务和目的地形象等因素的影响。季节性移居乡村休闲养老不仅可以缓解老龄化背景下都市圈不断增大的养老压力,而且可以解决乡村休闲旅游设施淡季的闲置问题,推动乡村环境的改善,促进当地村民的就业致富和城乡文明的交融与传播。都市圈具备条件的乡村可以把满足周边城市乡村休闲养老需求作为未来经济转型发展的一个方向。     

Juvenile crime and punishment: evidence from Japan

Over the last decade, juvenile crime has become a serious social problem in Japan. The Juvenile Law was revised in 2001 to impose harsher punishment on juvenile offenders. This revision makes it possible to impose criminal punishment on 14- and 15-year-old criminal offenders, while those offenders aged 16–19 have always faced criminal punishment, both before and after the revision. Using this revision as a natural experiment, this study conducts a difference-in-differences estimation to examine the effect of punishment on juvenile crime. The analysis provides evidence that punishment can deter juvenile crime. In addition, this research examines the criminal behaviour of 13-year-olds, who face no change in punishment, but who soon will in the near future. The results suggest that the revision also had a negative impact on the criminal behaviour of these younger offenders.