The Crime Reducing Effect of Education

By Stephen Machin, O. Marie, S. Vujić. Social Science Research Network, 2010

572 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this paper, we present evidence on empirical connections between crime and education, using various data sources from Britain. A robust finding is that criminal activity is negatively associated with higher levels of education. However, it is essential to ensure that the direction of causation flows from education to crime. Therefore, we identify the effect of education on participation in criminal activity using changes in compulsory school leaving age laws over time to account for the endogeneity of education. In this causal approach, for property crimes, the negative crime-education relationship remains strong and significant. The implications of these findings are unambiguous and clear. They show that improving education can yield significant social benefits and can be a key policy tool in the drive to reduce crime.

Subfields: Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/56bafeec2dfdcddf485380d08f9e533cc0eb7e79

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In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Green Returns to Education: Does Schooling Contribute to Pro-Environmental Behaviours? Evidence from Thailand (2017, background): “(McCrary and Royer, 2011) and crime (Lochner and Moretti, 2004; Machin et al., 2011).”
Crime Is in the Air: The Contemporaneous Relationship between Air Pollution and Crime (2020, background): “Indeed, a large body of literature studying the determinants of crime has examined various measures used to tackle crime, such as increased police presence and better education (Draca et al. 2011; Machin et al. 2011).”
Contextual stress and maternal sensitivity: A meta-analytic review of stress associations with the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort in observational studies (2018, background): “such as relationship conflict or financial pressure (Conger et al., 2010; Lochner & Moretti, 2004; Machin et al., 2011; Rauer et al., 2008).”
Spillovers from Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: Bolsa Família and Crime in Urban Brazil (2016, background): “…behavior through wages and preferences (discount rates and risk aversion), and, therefore, through the relative attractiveness of criminal activities and the cost of expected punishment (Becker and Mulligan, 1997, Lochner and Moretti, 2004, Lochner, 2010, Machin et al, 2010, and Deming, 2011).”