Inequality and violent crime: evidence from data on robbery and violent theft

This article argues that the link between income inequality and violent property crime might be spurious, complementing a similar argument in prior analysis by the author on the determinants of homicide. In contrast, Fajnzylber, Lederman & Loayza (1998; 2002a, b) provide seemingly strong and robust evidence that inequality causes a higher rate of both homicide and robbery/violent theft even after controlling for country-specific fixed effects. Our results suggest that inequality is not a statistically significant determinant, unless either country-specific effects are not controlled for or the sample is artificially restricted to a small number of countries. The reason why the link between inequality and violent property crime might be spurious is that income inequality is likely to be strongly correlated with country-specific fixed effects such as cultural differences. A high degree of inequality might be socially undesirable for any number of reasons, but that it causes violent crime is far from proven

MID-CAREER CHANGE: AN EXPLORATION.

MID-CAREER CHANGE: AN EXPLORATION

Death penalty: the political foundations of the global trend toward abolition

The death penalty is like no other punishment. Its continued existence in many countries of the world creates political tensions within these countries and between governments of retentionist and abolitionist countries. After the Second World War, more and more countries have abolished the death penalty. This article argues that the major determinants of this global trend toward abolition are political, a claim which receives support in a quantitative cross-national analysis from 1950 to 2002. Democracy, democratization, international political pressure on retentionist countries and peer group effects in relatively abolitionist regions all raise the likelihood of abolition. There is also a partisan effect as abolition becomes more likely if the chief executive’s party is left-wing oriented. Cultural, social and economic determinants receive only limited support. The global trend toward abolition will go on if democracy continues to spread around the world and abolitionist countries stand by their commitment to press for abolition all over the world.