Philippine crime and economics: new evidences using new crime reporting system
Date
2015-12
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Abstract
Crime and economics, undoubtedly, have significant relationship, as proved by
several empirical research conducted decades ago and in the recent years. Since 2009, the
Philippine National Police has implemented a new crime reporting system, which is said
to be more efficient, thus, largely increasing reported crime rates throughout the years.
Generating a conceptual framework to study the relationship of crimes and economics in
the Philippine context, this paper aimed to determine to what extent the following
economic and deterrence variables are related with the incidence of crimes: income
inequality, gross domestic product, unemployment, education, police-to-population ratio,
crime clearance efficiency, and police expenditure. Further, the results are utilized for
policy-making or assessment purposes which are aimed to reduce crimes in the country.
The researchers gathered 2009-2013 panel data with 17 regions and used the Fixed
Effects model, the Least Square Dummy Variables model, and Distributed Lag model for
each type of crime – against persons and against property. In the fixed effects model,
unemployment, gross domestic product, police-to-population ratio, and police
expenditure are significantly related with crimes, both against persons and property.
Meanwhile, in the LSDV model, regression results show that all regional dummies are
statistically significant except for CALABARZON. Importantly, for the distributed lag
model, the results showed that increases in crime clearance efficiency significantly
decreases both crimes against persons and property.
Description
Keywords
Philippines, crimes, crime rate, economics, income inequality, gross domestic product, unemployment, education, police-to-population ratio, crime clearance efficiency, police expenditure