This paper considers the relationship between inequality and crime using data from urban counties. The behavior of property and violent crime are quite different. Inequality has no effect on property crime but a strong and robust impact on violent crime, with an elasticity above 0.5. By contrast, poverty and police activity have significant effects on property crime, but little on violent crime. Property crime is well explained by the economic theory of crime, while violent crime is better explained by strain and social disorganization theories.

Inequality and crime

Currently, poverty and food deficiency are prevalent in the region where two-thirds of the population is resided according to World Bank estimates [Klytchnikova (2017). Counting calories: the data behind food insecurity and hunger. The World Bank Data Blog. Available at http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/counting-calories-data-behind-food-insecurity-and-hunger?CID=POV_TT_Poverty_EN_EXT]. This panel data study is set to analyze the effect of competitiveness, governance and globalization on poverty in case of 73 developing countries from 2005 to 2016. The indicators of governance are extracted from World Governance Indicators, and an overall index is constituted using factor analysis. This study has estimated eight models with different proxies of governance and one without governance. The results estimated using feasible generalized least squares approach which confirmed that all governance indicators have a negative impact on poverty. Similarly, globalization, competitiveness and development expenditures also assist in poverty alleviation.

Competitiveness, governance and globalization: What matters for poverty alleviation?

The study examines the relationship between growth–inequality–poverty (GIP) triangle and crime rate under the premises of inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve and pro-poor growth scenario in a panel of 16 diversified countries, over a period of 1990–2014. The study employed panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator for robust inferences. The results show that there is (i) no/flat relationship between per capita income and crime rate; (ii) U-shaped relationship between poverty headcount and per capita income and (iii) inverted U-shaped relationship between income inequality and economic growth in a panel of selected countries. Income inequality and unemployment rate increases crime rate while trade openness supports to decrease crime rate. Crime rate substantially increases income inequality while health expenditures decrease poverty headcount ratio. Per capita income is influenced by high poverty incidence, whereas health expenditures and trade factor both amplify per capita income across countries. The results of pro-poor growth analysis show that though the crime rate decreases in the years 2000–2004 and 2010–2014, while the growth phase was anti-poor due to unequal distribution of income. Pro-poor education and health trickle down to the lower income strata group for the years 2010–2014, as education and health reforms considerably reduce crime rate during the time period.

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Dynamic linkages between poverty, inequality, crime, and social expenditures in a panel of 16 countries: two-step GMM estimates

Scores of intervention programs these days apply instructional and, sometimes, systemic strategies to reduce bullying in schools. However, meta-analyses show that, on average, such programs decrease bullying and victimization only by around 20%, and often show no or negative effects in middle and high schools. Due to these sobering results, we propose the idea that bullying prevention for adolescents needs to focus more strongly on systemically informed relationship-building efforts. Building on past research, this study focuses on several aspects of relationships and classroom climate which are significant predictors of bullying behaviors: SES, ethnicity, and teaching quality. We propose the hypothesis that the link between classroom-level bullying and three classroom-level factors—students’ SES background, students’ ethnicity, and teaching quality—is mediated by the quality of student-teacher and student-student relationships (STR and SSR). The study uses multilevel structural regression modeling (M-SRM) to analyze a large and ethnically diverse American survey dataset (N = 146,044 students). Results confirm the hypothesis, showing that the relationships between SES and bullying, and between ethnicity and bullying, are entirely mediated by the quality of STR and SSR; the link between SES and bullying is even over-explained by the two relationship factors. Furthermore, the quality of STR is a positive predictor of medium strength (standardized coefficient = 0.45) of the quality of SSR. The findings suggest that schools with high levels of bullying behavior among students need to (re-)focus teacher professional development on relationship-building skills as well as instructional and a range of systemically informed improvement efforts.

Understanding Classroom Bullying Climates: the Role of Student Body Composition, Relationships, and Teaching Quality

This study surveyed the literature on the expected and unexpected effects of incarceration before ('deterrence'), during ('incapacitation'), and after ('after-effects') prison confinement occurs, t...

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The Effect of Mass Incarceration on Criminality in Colombia

Economic hardship and crime is always a debatable issue in the political economy literature. Some authors define poverty leads to crime some are completely opposite. The purpose of this paper is to find out the impact of poverty on crime in the USA.,Using time series data of USA over the period from 1965 to 2016, this study applies autoregressive distributed lag approach to identify the effect of poverty on crime.,The outcomes confirm a positive co-integrating relationship between poverty and property crime. It can be argued that poverty ultimately leads property crime in long run in the USA. However, unemployment and GDP exhibit neither long-run nor short-run relationship with property crime and they are not cointegrated for the calculated period.,The subject of this paper helps to explain and analyze the nexus between poverty and crime in the USA.,Government and policymakers should focus more on poverty rather than unemployment alone to control property crime.,This study attempts to identify the consequences of economic hardship and poverty on the crime in the advanced economy like USA.

Does poverty lead to crime? Evidence from the United States of America

Financial Development, Technological Development, and Poverty: A Cross-Sectional Study

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of sectoral shift on the stock return of Bangladesh. This study employs auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach using the weekly data of various sectoral indices of Bangladesh over the period from May 1999 to September 2016. The findings tend to indicate that there has possible sectoral portfolio diversification in the market and ‘general product industry' is the most exogenous and profitable sector from the rest. This study is one of the first attempts of the sectoral analysis and its impact on the stock return with the reference to Bangladesh. Furthermore, this study can be a benchmark for the policymakers of emerging economies to find the impact of economic transformation in the stock returns of the equity markets.

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Mohammed Imran

Papers

Does poverty lead to crime? Evidence from the United States of America

Financial Development, Technological Development, and Poverty: A Cross-Sectional Study

Nexus Between Sectoral Shift and Stock Return: Insights From Bangladesh