Working Paper #2008-042
The Impact of Social Capital on Crime: Evidence from the Netherlands
This paper investigates the relation between social capital and crime.
The analysis contributes to explaining why crime is so heterogeneous
across space. By employing current and historical data for Dutch
municipalities and by providing novel indicators to measure social
capital, we find a link between social capital and crime. Our results
suggest that higher levels of social capital are associated with lower
crime rates and that municipalities’ historical states in terms of
population heterogeneity, religiosity and education affect current
levels of social capital. Social capital indicators explain about 10
percent of the observed variance in crime. It is also shown why some
social capital indicators are more useful than others in a robustness
analysis.
- Keywords
-
- Social capital
- Crime
- the Netherlands UNU-MERIT Working Papers ISSN 1871-9872
- JEL codes
-
- A13
- A14
- K42
- Z13
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Akçomak, S., & ter Weel, B. (2008). The Impact of Social Capital on Crime: Evidence from the Netherlands (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2008-042). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=3470