The Relationship between Violent Crime and Misery Index: A Specific Case in Iran

Authors

1 Department of Economics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Economics, Petroleum University of Technology, Khuzestan, Iran

Abstract

The economic status of society does affect both kinds and amounts of violent crimes. This paper is going to analyze the relationships between some economic variables in Iran, on one hand, and violent crimes on the other: Economic growth, misery index, and female employment rate are the main economic variables in this research. Proxies of violent crimes in this paper include the number of intentional murders, number of unintentional murders, number of maiming, number of beating documents and poising documents. Some findings of this paper indicate a positive and significant relationship between economic variables and violent crimes in question in Iran in both the short run and long run. The periods of study are 1981-2016. One policy implication for this work is that increasing the cost of committing the crime, decreasing the misery index, and progress in economic growth, all can decrease violent crimes in Iran.

Keywords

References

Asghar, N., Qureshi, S., & Nadeem, M. (2016). Effects of Socioeconomic and Political Factors on the Crime Rate in Pakistan. Journal of Political Studies, 23(1), 183-206.
Becker, G. S. (1968). Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach (13-68). In The Economic Dimensions of Crime. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2018). Time Series Data. Tehran: Central Bank of Iran Press.
Cook, P. J., Machin, S. J., Marie, O., & Mastrobuoni, G. (2013). Lessons from the Economics of Crime. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2119606
Chintrakarn, P., & Herzer, D. (2012). More Inequality, More Crime? A Panel Cointegration Analysis for the United States. Economics Letters, 116(3), 389-391.
Dadgar, Y., & Nazari, R. (2015). Analysis of Crime in Iran by Helping Economic Models. Journal of Legal Studies, 19(1), 63-86.
---------- (2013). Analysis of the Impact of Misery Index on Crime in Iran. Journal of Economic Studies and Policies, 9(2), 63-86.
Detotto, C., & Manuela, P. (2010). Testing the Effects of Crime on the Italian Economy. Economics Bulletin, 30(3), 2063-2074.
Demombynes, G., & Özler, B. (2005). Crime and Local Inequality in South Africa. Journal of Development Economics, 76(2), 265-292.
Edmark, K. (2005). Unemployment and Crime: Is There a Connection? Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 107(2), 353-373.
Ehrlich, I. (1973). Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. Journal of Political Economy, 81(3), 521-565.
Fallahi, F., & Rodriguez, G. (2014). The Link between Unemployment and Crime in the US. Social Science Research, 45, 33-45.
Haddad, G. K., & Moghadam, H. M. (2011). The Socioeconomic and Demographic Determinants of Crime in Iran (a Regional Panel Study). European Journal of Law and Economics, 32(1), 99-114.
Hernandez, J. (2018). The Truth about Aaron. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
IPL. (2017). Law of Punishment in Iran, 2. Tehran: Iranian Judicial Center.
Kelly, M. (2000). Inequality and Crime. Review of Economics and Statistics, 82(4), 530-539.
Makipour, Z., & Rabani, A. (2013). Investigating Economic Causes of Social Trauma. Strategic Research on Security and Social Order, 6(2), 79-98 (In Persian).
Mehrgan, N., & Garshasby, S. (2011). Income Equality and Crime in Iran. Journal of Economic Research, 11(4), 109-125.
OECD. (2018). Annual Reports in under Economy Activities. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/oecd.publishing/docs/eo_and_ps_part
Mehta, N., & Preston, S. (2018). Are Major Behavioral and Sociodemographic Risk Factors for Mortality Additive or Multiplicative in their Effects? Social Science & Medicine, 154, 93-99.
Pesaran, M. H. (1997). The Role of Economic Theory in Modelling the Long-run. The Economic Journal, 107(440), 178-191.
Pesaran, M. H., Shin, Y., & Smith, R. J. (2001). Bounds Testing Approaches to the Analysis of Level Relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(3), 289-326.
UNODC. (2018). Homicide Statistics. Vienna: UNIDC Publishers.
WB. (2018). Reports in Crimes and Criminal Activities. Retrieved from https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/630671538158537244/the-world-bank-annual-report-2018
SCI. (2018). Economic Indexes. Tehran: Statistical Center Publisher.
Iranian Economic Review
Volume 25, Issue 3
September 2021
Pages 499-507

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics