The effect of socio-economic determinants on crime rates: An empirical research in the case of Greece with cointegration analysis

The present paper analyzes the relationship between the criminal offences, the function of the justice system and some of their socio-economic determinants in the case of Greece by estimating their dynamic interactions. The analysis covers the period 1971-2006 and the cointegration methodologies of Johansen (1988) and Johansen-Juselius (1990, 1992) are applied to the VAR model. From the cointegration results, a cointegrating vector is shown among total offences, convicted persons and socio-economic variables. Moreover, Error Correction Models are estimated for the short-run dynamics of the explanatory variables and their convergence to a long-run equilibrium state.