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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics pp 471–476Cite as

Crime, Unemployment and

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Definition

Crime is one of the most important social issues citizens are concerned about. As such, it has received a good deal of attention from policymakers and scholars across fields such as criminology, economics, law, psychology, and sociology. Crime is partly motivated by economic conditions, and a large body of research has studied the relationship between economic factors, particularly unemployment, and crime for more than 50 years. Available evidence shows that the relationship is ambiguous, and it is an actively researched topic.

Introduction

Crime was first analyzed by economists in the late 1960s and early 1970s (e.g., Becker 1968; Ehrlich 1973). The analysis is based on the cost and benefit of crime. The cost to an individual who commits property crime is the lost legitimate incomes and the penalties when crime is caught, and the stolen properties and incomes constitute the benefit (see Anderson 2017for a general discussion of the cost). The individual then compares the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

    Kangoh Lee

Authors
  1. Kangoh Lee
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Correspondence to Kangoh Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRE and University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Faculté d’Economie, Université de Montpellier and LAMETA-UMR CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  3. DiGSPES, University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

  4. IEL, Torino, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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Lee, K. (2019). Crime, Unemployment and. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_684

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