论文标题
当你已经倒下时踢你：紧缩政策对犯罪的多重影响
Kicking You When You're Already Down: The Multipronged Impact of Austerity on Crime
论文作者
论文摘要
《 2012年英国福利改革法》施加了一系列深层福利削减，对前较贫困地区的影响不成比例。在本文中，我们提供了这些紧缩措施对在2011 - 2015年在英格兰和威尔士的2015年期间的两个不同但互补的犯罪率（犯罪率和犯罪率较低的犯罪集中）的影响的第一个证据，并记录了四个新事实。首先，更容易接触福利改革的地区会增加犯罪水平，这是由于暴力犯罪的增加所致。其次，由于福利改革，暴力和财产犯罪都变得更加集中在一个地区。第三，在此期间，犯罪率首当其冲的是前贫困的居民。第四，我们没有发现证据表明福利改革增加了累犯，这表明我们发现的犯罪变化可能是由新罪犯驱动的。结合了这些结果，我们记录了英国政府政府对社会福利紧缩计划的核心改革负面溢出的明确证据，这加强了该计划的直接不平等现象。在享乐房价模型的指导下，我们计算了削减所隐含的福利效应，以便对改革的影响进行经济量化。我们记录了该政策的隐含福利损失 - 由公众承担 - 远远超过了对政府库存的储蓄。
The UK Welfare Reform Act 2012 imposed a series of deep welfare cuts, which disproportionately affected ex-ante poorer areas. In this paper, we provide the first evidence of the impact of these austerity measures on two different but complementary elements of crime -- the crime rate and the less-studied concentration of crime -- over the period 2011-2015 in England and Wales, and document four new facts. First, areas more exposed to the welfare reforms experience increased levels of crime, an effect driven by a rise in violent crime. Second, both violent and property crime become more concentrated within an area due to the welfare reforms. Third, it is ex-ante more deprived neighborhoods that bear the brunt of the crime increases over this period. Fourth, we find no evidence that the welfare reforms increased recidivism, suggesting that the changes in crime we find are likely driven by new criminals. Combining these results, we document unambiguous evidence of a negative spillover of the welfare reforms at the heart of the UK government's austerity program on social welfare, which reinforced the direct inequality-worsening effect of this program. Guided by a hedonic house price model, we calculate the welfare effects implied by the cuts in order to provide a financial quantification of the impact of the reform. We document an implied welfare loss of the policy -- borne by the public -- that far exceeds the savings made to government coffers.
