Journal of Political Economy Vol. 130 No. 3 2022
Why Does Education Reduce Crime?
open access
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.
- DOI
- 10.1086/717895
- Volume
- 130
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 732-765
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref