This paper studies the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime in Spain. We estimate a crime equation using a panel dataset of Spanish provinces from 1993 to 1999 and applying the GMM-system estimator. Results indicate that lagged crime rate, clearance rate, urbanisation rate and...

This study examines the impact of education on criminal activity in Italy. A number of hypotheses are tested regarding the effects of education and past incidence of crime on criminal activity, using annual data for the 20 Italian regions over the period 1980 to 1995. Empirical results show that...

This paper studies the non-market effects of education on crime using a panel dataset for the 20 Italian regions over the period 1980-1995. Our empirical results suggest that education reduces crime over and above its effect through labour market opportunities (employment rate and wage rate)....

This study explains the emergence of the Sicilian mafia in the XIX century as the product of the interaction between natural resource abundance and weak institutions. We advance the hypothesis that the mafia emerged after the collapse of the Bourbon Kingdom in a context characterized by a severe...

In August 2006, the Italian government released one-third of the nation's prison inmates via a national collective pardon. We test for a discontinuous break in national crime rates corresponding to the mass release. We also test for the effect of the return of the incarceration rate to its...

In the last decades, Italian southern-based mafia organizations have expanded their sphere of influences to the traditionally immune Northern regions. We empirically investigate the channels that favored the diffusion of southern Italian mafias to the northern Italian provinces. We focus our...

In this paper we examine the empirical relationship between immigration and crime across Italian provinces during the period 1990-2003. Drawing on police administrative data, we first document that the size of immigrant population is positively correlated with the incidence of property crimes...

Abstract: We document the existence of a Crime Kuznets Curve in US states since the 1970s. As income levels have risen, crime has followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, rst increasing and then dropping. The Crime Kuznets Curve is not explained by income inequality. In fact, we show that during...

Abstract: We document the existence of a Crime Kuznets Curve in US states since the 1970s. As income levels have risen, crime has followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, rst increasing and then dropping. The Crime Kuznets Curve is not explained by income inequality. In fact, we show that during...

Abstract We document the existence of a Crime Kuznets Curve in US states since the 1970s. As in come level shave risen, crime has followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, first increasing and then dropping. The Crime Kuznets Curve is not explained by income inequality. In fact, we show that during...