TY  - JOUR
AU  - Grogger,Jeff
TI  - Market Wages and Youth Crime
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5983
PY  - 1997
Y2  - March 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5983
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5983.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jeffrey Grogger
Irving B. Harris Professor of Urban Policy
Harris School of Public Policy
University of Chicago
1155 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL   60637
Tel: 773/542-3533
Fax: 773/702-0926
E-Mail: jgrogger@uchicago.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1997-11-01
AB  - Youth crime is widespread.  To study the effect of market wages on youth crime, I analyze a time-allocation model in which consumers face parametric wages and diminishing marginal returns to crime.  Under these assumptions, an individual who works will commit crime if the returns to the first hour of crime exceed his market wage.  This decision rule imposes considerable structure on the econometric model, which I estimate using data from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort.  The empirical model provides estimates of the determinants of criminal returns and of the wage responsiveness of criminal participation.  Young men's behavior appears to be very responsive to price incentives.  My estimates suggest that falling real wages may have been an important determinant of rising youth crime over the past two decades.  Moreover, wages explain an important component of the racial differential in criminal participation, and they largely explain the age distribution of crime.
ER  -