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Title: Why Does Education Reduce Crime?

Author(s): Brian Bell, Rui Costa and Stephen Machin

Publication Date: September 2018

Keyword(s): Compulsory schooling laws, Crime age profiles and School dropout

Programme Area(s): Labour Economics

Abstract: Prior research shows reduced criminality to be a beneficial consequence of education policies that raise the school leaving age. This paper studies how crime reductions occurred in a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. These reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, reflecting both a temporary incapacitation effect and a more sustained, longer run crime reducing effect. In contrast to the previous research looking at earlier US education reforms, crime reduction does not arise solely as a result of education improvements, and so the observed longer run effect is interpreted as dynamic incapacitation. Additional evidence based on longitudinal data combined with an education reform from a different setting in Australia corroborates the finding of dynamic incapacitation underpinning education policy-induced crime reduction.

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Bibliographic Reference

Bell, B, Costa, R and Machin, S. 2018. 'Why Does Education Reduce Crime?'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=13162