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Journal of Peace Research
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Inequality and Violent Crime: Evidence from Data on Robbery and Violent Theft

Eric Neumayer

Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science

This article argues that the link between income inequality and violent property crime might be spurious, complementing a similar argument in prior analysis by the author on the determinants of homicide. In contrast, Fajnzylber, Lederman & Loayza provide seemingly strong and robust evidence that inequality causes a higher rate of both homicide and robbery/violent theft, even after controlling for country-specific fixed effects. The results in the present article suggest that inequality is not a statistically significant determinant, unless either country-specific effects are not controlled for or the sample is artificially restricted to a small number of countries. The reason for the link between inequality and violent property crime being spurious is that income inequality is likely to be strongly correlated with country-specific fixed effects, such as cultural differences. A high degree of inequality might be socially undesirable for any number of reasons, but that it causes violent crime is far from proven.

Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 42, No. 1, 101-112 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0022343305049669
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[Abstract] [PDF]