Market wages and youth crime

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Grogger, J
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/209905
• 发表日期: 1998
• 页码: 756-791
• 关键词: explanation; PUNISHMENT; MODEL; AGE

摘要

To study the problem of widespread youth crime, I analyze a time-allocation model in which consumers face parametric wages and diminishing marginal returns to crime. The theory motivates an econometric model that I estimate using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. My estimates suggest that youth behavior is responsive to price incentives and that falling real wages may have been an important determinant of rising youth crime during the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, wage differentials explain a substantial component of both the racial differential in criminal participation and the age distribution of crime.