Why does education reduce crime?

Bell, Brian, Costa, Rui ORCID: 0000-0002-7820-7373 and Machin, Stephen ORCID: 0009-0004-8130-2701 (2022) Why does education reduce crime? Journal of Political Economy, 130 (3). 732 - 765. ISSN 0022-3808

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Abstract

We provide a unifying empirical framework to study why crime reductions occurred due to a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. Because the reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, they generate both a short-term incapacitation effect and a more sustained crime-reducing effect. In contrast to previous research looking at earlier US education reforms, we find that reform-induced crime reduction does not arise primarily from education improvements. Decomposing short-and long-run effects, the observed longer-run effect for the post-1980 education reforms is primarily attributed to dynamic incapacitation.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jpe/current
Additional Information:	© 2021 The University of Chicago
Divisions:	Economics Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	28 Oct 2021 13:15
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 02:43
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/112522

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