Personal indebtedness, spatial effects and crime : a comparison across the urban hierarchy

The recent recession has made understanding the relationship between economic conditions and crime crucial to public debate. In this paper we seek to understand the spatial pattern of property and theft crimes using a range of socioeconomic variables, as well as data on the level of personal indebtedness, for two regions of the UK: London (the capital city) and the North East of England (a peripheral region). Building on earlier published work in this area, this paper will contrast the regression results obtained in both of these regions. This allows a comparison of the factors that are important in explaining the observed pattern of theft and property crimes, including an analysis of the spatial dimension of these factors, between these two regions. Doing so will allow a comparison of the elements that are important in explaining the observed pattern of theft and property crimes across the two regions

Personal indebtedness, community characteristics and theft crimes

Becker (1968) and Stigler (1970) provide the germinal works for an economic analysis of crime, and their approach has been utilised to consider the response of crime rates to a range of economic, criminal and socioeconomic factors. Until recently however this did not extend to a consideration of the role of personal indebtedness in explaining the observed pattern of crime. This paper uses the Becker (1968) and Stigler (1970) framework, and extends to a fuller consideration of the relationship between economic hardship and theft crimes in an urban setting. The increase in personal debt in the past decade has been significant, which combined with the recent global recession, has led to a spike in personal insolvencies. In the context of the recent recession it is important to understand how increases in personal indebtedness may spillover into increases in social problems like crime. This paper uses data available at the neighbourhood level for London, UK on county court judgments (CCJ's) granted against residents in that neighbourhood, this is our measure of personal indebtedness, and examines the relationship between a range of community characteristics (economic, socio-economic, etc), including the number of CCJ's granted against residents, and the observed pattern of theft crimes for three successive years using spatial econometric methods. Our results confirm that theft crimes in London follow a spatial process, that personal indebtedness is positively associated with theft crimes in London, and that the covariates we have chosen are important in explaining the spatial variation in theft crimes. We identify a number of interesting results, for instance that there is variation in the impact of covariates across crime types, and that the covariates which are important in explaining the pattern of each crime type are largely stable across the three periods considered in this analysis

Summary paper on the ‘carbon accounting’ methodology applied to the assessment of the Scottish Government’s 2010-11 budget

Hailed by WWF Scotland as a “World First”, the Scottish Government in late September 2009 published a Carbon Assessment of their draft 2010-11 budget. Undertaken a year in advance of this assessment becoming a statutory requirement under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, this exercise produced some interesting results and generated a lot of interest. This article is intended to provide an overview of the exercise that was undertaken, and to highlight and address some outstanding issues that surround the assessment

Exploring key economic sectors and groups of sectors in Scotland; 1998, 2004, 2007

Different methods and criteria exist for determining ‘key’ economic sectors. The Scottish Government identifies a number of ‘key’ sectors, although it is not clear which metrics it used to choose these. It is likely that these sectors are considered to be ‘key’ in delivering the Scottish Government’s policy priorities. This differs from a more formally defined economic approach to determining key sectors. However, even within the economics literature, there are different ways of thinking about which sectors are ‘key’. This short paper presents one approach to determining individual and groups of ‘key’ sectors. We will explain why these approaches are not necessarily equivalent, and what value is added in moving from considering sectors individually to analysing the impact of sectors in groups. We begin with a non-technical overview of the methods we employ, before discussing the database used in this analysis. We then present the results of applying this method for Scotland for three time periods: 1998, 2004, and 2007. We mainly focus on sectoral output, but we also include one set of results which look at key employment sectors. In the discussion of our results we concentrate on two things. First, we are interested in which sectors are identified as important in Scotland in each time period. Second, we investigate how those sectors have changed between 1998, 2004 and 2007

A Bayesian Spatial Individual Effects Probit Model of the 2010 U.K. General Election

The Conservative Party emerged from the 2010 United Kingdom General Election as the largest single party, but their support was not geographically uniform. In this paper, we estimate a hierarchical Bayesian spatial probit model that tests for the presence of regional voting effects. This model allows for the estimation of individual region-specific effects on the probability of Conservative Party success, incorporating information on the spatial relationships between the regions of the mainland United Kingdom. After controlling for a range of important covariates, we find that these spatial relationships are significant and that our individual region-specific effects estimates provide additional evidence of North-South variations in Conservative Party support.United Kingdom General Election, Bayesian hierarchical modelling, spatial econometrics

Personal indebtedness, community characteristics and theft crimes

Debt played a central role in the Great Recession, both in its cause and in its resolution, and once again, concern is rising about household indebtedness. This paper examines the relationship between personal indebtedness and theft crime using information on personal debt default. This paper builds on an established literature examining economic conditions and community crime rates, with an analytical framework provided by the Becker (1968) and Stigler (1974). Our paper is motivated from the economic, sociology and criminology literatures, and extends to a fuller consideration of the relationship between economic hardship and theft crimes in an urban setting. In particular, the sociology and criminology literature permit a much deeper understanding of the human behaviour and motivations underpinning the relationships represented in the market model of crime. Using data available at the neighbourhood level for London, UK on county court judgments (CCJ's) granted against residents in each neighbourhood as our measure of personal indebtedness, we examine the relationship between this measure, as well as a range of community characteristics, and the observed pattern of theft crimes using spatial econometric methods. Our results confirm that theft crimes in London follow a spatial process, and that personal indebtedness is positively associated with theft crimes in London. We identify a number of interesting results, for instance that there is variation in the impact of covariates across crime types, and that the covariates which are important in explaining the pattern of each crime type are largely stable across the period considered in this analysis

The output gap : what is it, how can it be estimated and are they fit for policy makers' purposes?

The Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC), as part of its statutory remit to produce forecasts of the Scottish economy and revenues from devolved taxes, provide assessments of Scotland’s ‘output gap’, which in turn are derived from estimating ‘potential output’. The evolution of potential output and the output gap play key roles in any assessment of the current position of the Scottish economy, and in turn the outlook for future economic growth and tax revenues. This article looks at these concepts in more detail. In what follows we explain the concept of the output gap, its relevance to policy, how output gaps in a given economy can be estimated and why the estimates are always uncertain. We then discuss current views on the evolution of the UK’s output gap and the SFC’s estimates of Scotland’s output gap and end by discussing whether estimates of the output gap currently tell policymakers what they really need to know

Responsibility for regional waste generation: A single region extended input-output analysis with uni-directional trade flows

The paper uses a regional input-output (IO) framework and data derived on waste generation by industry to examine regional accountability for waste generation. In addition to estimating a series of industry output-waste coefficients, the paper considers two methods for waste attribution but focuses first on one (trade endogenised linear attribution system (TELAS)) that permits a greater focus on private and public final consumption as the main exogenous driver of waste generation. Second, the paper uses a domestic technology assumption (DTA) to consider a regional ‘waste footprint’ where local consumption requirements are assumed to be met through domestic production.waste attribution; regional economy; input-output analysis; Wales

Reconsidering the calculation and role of environmental footprints

Following the recent Copenhagen Climate Change conference, there has been discussion of the methods and underlying principles that inform climate change targets. Climate change targets following the Kyoto Protocol are broadly based on a production accounting principle (PAP). This approach focuses on emissions produced within given geographical boundaries. An alternative approach is a consumption accounting principle (CAP), where the focus is on emissions produced globally to meet consumption demand within the national (or regional) economy1. Increasingly popular environmental footprint measures, including ecological and carbon footprints, attempt to measure environmental impacts based on CAP methods. The perception that human consumption decisions lie at the heart of the climate change problem is the impetus driving pressure on policymakers for a more widespread use of CAP measures. At a global level of course, emissions accounted for under the production and consumption accounting principles would be equal. It is international trade that leads to differences in emissions under the two principles. This paper, the second in this special issue of the Fraser Commentary, examines how input-output accounting techniques may be applied to examine pollution generation under both of these accounting principles, focussing on waste and carbon generation in the Welsh economy as a case study. However, we take a different focus, arguing that the ‘domestic technology assumption’, taken as something of a mid-point in moving between production and consumption accounting in the first paper, may actually constitute a more useful focus for regional policymakers than full footprint analyses

What Causes Waste Flows? An Interregional Analysis of Welsh Waste Shipments

Much of the waste flow literature focuses on international waste trade and oftentimes solely on trade in hazardous wastes. However, data is often available for waste flows within national borders and these flows could yield just as much information on the relationships that exist between origins and destinations. In a world where waste creation, transport, and disposal is becoming a global problem, understanding and modeling these flows is becoming increasingly important. This paper uses a gravity model approach and data on commercial waste shipments between local authorities within Wales to examine the characteristics that are responsible for origin-destination waste flow relationships. We focus on economic characteristics, as well as socioeconomic and demographic characteristics that may play a role in interregional Welsh waste trade