|
|
Article: Alcohol Availability and Crime: Evidence from Census Tract Data.
- Article from:
- Southern Economic Journal
- Article date:
- July 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Southern Economic Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong [*]
Using census tract data from the city of Detroit and a reduced-form crime equation, this article finds that alcohol availability is positively and significantly related to total, property, and violent crime rates and homicides. The elasticity of crime rates with respect to alcohol availability calculated in this study are 0.92, 0.82, 0.87, and 0.12 for total crime, violent crime, property crime, and homicide, respectively. These elasticities do not change qualitatively across estimation methods for the various measures of crime rates. I find that ordinary least squares estimates impart a downward bias to the effects alcohol ...