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The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 99 No. 4 2017

Social Interactions and Crime Revisited: An Investigation Using Individual Offender Data in Dutch Neighborhoods

Wim Bernasco1; Thomas de Graaff2; Jan Rouwendal2; Wouter Steenbeek1

1 Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement · 2 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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Abstract

Using data on the age, sex, ethnicity, and criminal involvement of more than 14 million residents of all ages residing in approximately 4,000 Dutch neighborhoods, we test if an individual's criminal involvement is affected by the proportion of criminals living in his or her residential neighborhood. We develop a binomial discrete choice model for criminal involvement and estimate it on individual data. We control for both the endogeneity that may be related to unobserved neighborhood characteristics and for sorting behavior. We find significant social interaction effects, but our findings do not imply multiple equilibria or large multiplier effects.

DOI
10.1162/rest_a_00656
Volume
99
Issue
4
Pages
622-636
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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