Journal article
Turning from crime: A dynamic perspective
RC Sickles, J Williams
Journal of Econometrics | ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA | Published : 2008
Abstract
This paper examines criminal choice using a variant of the human capital model. The innovation of our approach is that it attempts to disaggregate individual capital, not unlike production-based studies which disaggregate physical capital into equipment and structures. We disaggregate an individual's capital stock into the standard human capital component as well as a utility generating component that we call social capital. In our set-up, social capital is used to account for the influence of social norms on the decision to participate in crime. This is done by modeling the stigma of arrest as a reduction in the individual's social capital stock. We also allow individuals to account for the..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank participants of the Labor Econometrics Workshop, Australian National University, the Economics Seminar Series, University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Centre for Microeconometrics at the University of Melbourne, and the Conference on "The Use of Econometrics in informing Public Policy Makers" funded by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, April. 2006 for their insightful comments. We also thank Peter Hartley for his valuable and critical suggestions at earlier stages of the research, Levent Kutlu for providing his expertise and research assistance, and an anonymous referee for extensive comments and criticisms that substantially improved the paper. The usual caveat applies.