Chirac - criminal?

This paper is well-timed, in light of Chirac's decision to scrap the proposed CPE:

Youth unemployment has a clear positive effect on most economic crimes: robberies, burglaries, car thefts, thefts from cars, pick-pocketing, drug offences, damage to vehicles. The effects are often extremely large and significant.

A percentage point rise in the youth unemployment rate in a departement causes, ceteris paribus, a rise in the burglary rate of 274 per 100,000 - though this rate falls if unemployment rises among older workers.
This is entirely consistent with neoclassical economics. When opportunities to make money legally are poor, some people will turn to property crime. But if everyone's poor - unemployment is universally high - crime falls because there's nothing worth stealing.
This, of course, increases the importance of trying to reduce youth unemployment, because its social costs are so high.
And if you believe the CPE would have reduced youth unemployment, it means you have yet more reason to accuse Jacques Chirac of adding to the crime rate.

Comments

[dsquared]

are they measuring the "youth unemployment rate" in the normal way (as % of workforce) or as % of population? If it's the first, then they're picking up the cross-sectional variance in university attendance.

[Recusant]

It's even simpler than that. Work is like prison: it keeps you off the streets and therefore removes opportunity.