Unemployment, GDP, and Crime: The Importance of Multiple Measurements of the Economy

Abstract

The relationship between unemployment and crime is complex and consists of two independent and counteracting mechanisms: the motivation effect and the guardianship/opportunity effect. Cantor and Land (1985) put forth a model that synthesizes these two effects and found that guardianship/opportunity dominates motivation. Recent work questions this result and the use of unemployment to measure economic performance. Instead, some of this new research uses a direct measure of the economy at the US state level – gross state product, for example. In the present article, the relationship between crime and economic performance is investigated using unemployment, gross domestic product, a hybrid modelling approach, and Canadian provinces as the unit of analysis. It is found that both unemployment and gross domestic product matter for crime, guardianship/opportunity explains more results than motivation, and the strength of either effect depends on the crime type being analysed.