What part of the income distribution matters for explaining property crime? The case of Colombia

Inequality has always been taken as a major explanatory factor of the rate of crime. Yet, the evidence in favor of that hypothesis is weak. Pure cross-sectional analyses show significant positive effects but do not control for fixed effects. Time series and panel data point to a variety of results, but few turn out being significant. The hypothesis maintained in this paper is that it is a specific part of the distribution, rather than the overall distribution as summarized by conventional inequality measures, that is most likely to influence the rate of (property) crime in a given society. Using a simple theoretical model and panel data in 7 Colombian cities over a 20 year period, we design a method that permits identifying the precise segment of the population whose relative income best explains time changes in crime.

• Autores: Bourguignon, François; Sánchez Torres, Fabio José; Núñez Méndez, Jairo Augusto
• Tipo de recurso: Work document
• Fecha de publicación: 2003
• Institución: Universidad de los Andes
• Repositorio: Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/8302
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/1992/8302
• Palabra clave: Crime economics; Income distribution; Inequality; Delitos contra la propiedad - Aspectos socioeconómicos - Colombia; Pobreza - Aspectos socioeconómicos - Colombia; Colombia - Condiciones económicas; Colombia - Condiciones sociales; C23, D3, D63, K42
• Rights: openAccess
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/