Do inequalities in access to water and electricity increase homicide in sub-Saharan Africa?

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study is to analyse the effect of inequalities on water and electricity supply on homicide. This study uses panel data on intentional homicide rates and inequality for a sample of 21 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2015, based on information from the United Nations World Crime Survey, World Bank data and the World Development Indicator, to analyse the effect of inequality on intentional homicide. A climate model incorporating inequality is estimated using the Pooled OLS method and the DCM method. These estimators take into account unobserved country-specific effects, the joint endogeneity of some of the explanatory variables and the existence of certain types of measurement errors affecting the homicide data. The results show that inequalities on water and electricity supply increase the rate of intentional homicide. Furthermore, by performing a long-run dynamic fixed effects analysis, the results showed that inequalities in access to water and inequalities in access to electricity will increase the more significant and robust coefficients of the intentional homicide rate if governments do not implement better strategies. JEL Classification : D63, K42, N37, N77