Citation

McCormick RE, Tollison RD. Int. Rev. Law Econ. 1986; 6(1): 115-124.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0144-8188(86)90044-X

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The impact of crime on the distribution of income has received little attention in the economics literature. In this paper we report some evidence that crime has a substantial impact on the distribution of income. Using time-series data on college basketball, which bears a close similarity to the national distribution of income in the USA, we find a significant association between the amount of crime in a basketball game, as proxied by the number of personal fouls, and the distribution of income, as measured by player-by-player scoring. Specifically, summary statistics of this income distribution, such as entropy and concentration ratios, are significantly associated with the number of fouls: more crime, more equal distribution of income. This result stands at variance with an earlier result of Ehrlich. Moreover, modeling fouls endogeneously does not alter this result and shows that crime and income distribution are jointly determined.