Date of Award

8-2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Legacy Department

Economics

Committee Chair/Advisor

Tollison, Robert D.

Committee Member

Baier , Scott L.

Committee Member

Wood , Daniel

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the impacts of education on crime participation among youth aged between 18 -24, using data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97(NLSY97). First, it estimates the reduction effects of high school graduation on general crime participation, which shows significant negative effects. Then this paper predicts the effects of high school graduation on three types of crime. A robust finding is that all of the three types of crimes are negative associated with high school graduation whether or not controlling family background and cognitive skill. Also, this paper classifies education level into three levels and predicts the effects of crime participation for each education level. The results reflect that more higher education level has larger crime reduction effects than lower education level. In order to check the robustness of the findings above, this paper explores the effects of high school graduation and ability on incarceration. The implications of these findings are clear and could give policy suggestion. That is, improving education could exert a key policy tool to reduce crime.

Included in

Economics Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.