Work and Crime: an Exploration Using Panel Data

Abstract

In this chapter we consider the legitimate and criminal activities of young men. We are interested primarily in the relationship between young men’s criminal activity and their employment. We use data for a birth cohort sample that contain information of the activities of a representative sample of young men over a seven-year period.

This chapter was originally published in Werner W. Pommerehne (ed.), Public Finance and Irregular Activities, Proceedings of the 49th Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance/Institut International de Finances Publiques (Berlin, 1993) supplement, vol. 49 (1994), pp. 155–67, and is reproduced by kind permission of Public Finance/Finances Publiques.

The ordering of the authors’ names was decided randomly; all work was done jointly. We would like to thank Marvin E. Wolfgang of the Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law at the University of Pennsylvania for providing us with data, and Neil Weiner, also at the Center, for invaluable assistance with the data and for information about the Philadelphia criminal justice system. Terence Thornberry, Dean of the School of Criminal Justice, State University of New York, Albany, also provided helpful insights regarding the data and their use. Kevin Lang, Daniel Nagin and Robin Sickles provided valuable comments on earlier drafts. Finally, we would like to thank the National Science Foundation for the funding that made the research possible.