Data and Code for: Expected Returns to Crime and Crime Location
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Nils Braakmann, Newcastle University; Arnaud Chevalier, Royal Holloway University of London; Tanya Wilson, University Of Glasgow
Version: View help for Version V1
| Name | File Type | Size | Last Modified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Replication pack | 10/07/2023 04:58:PM |
Project Citation:
Braakmann, Nils, Chevalier, Arnaud, and Wilson, Tanya. Data and Code for: Expected Returns to Crime and Crime Location. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-08-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/E190941V1
Project Description
Summary:
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This is the replication package for the article "Expected Returns to Crime and Crime Location". We provide first evidence that temporal variations in the expected returns to crime affect the
location of property crime. Our identification strategy relies on the widely-held perception
in the UK that households of South Asian descent store gold jewellery at home. Price
movements on the international market for gold exogenously affect the expected gains from
burgling these households, which become relatively more lucrative targets as the gold price
increases. Using a neighbourhood-level panel on reported crime and difference-in-differences,
we find that burglaries in South Asian neighbourhoods are more sensitive to variations in
the gold price than other neighbourhoods in the same municipality, confirming that burglars
react rationally to variations in the expected returns to their activities. We conduct a battery
of robustness tests to eliminate alternative explanations.
Scope of Project
Subject Terms:
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Economics ;
Economics of crime;
Returns to crime;
Becker model of criminal behaviour;
Optimal Foraging Theory;
Crime Location
JEL Classification:
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J19 Demographic Economics: Other
K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
J19 Demographic Economics: Other
K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
Geographic Coverage:
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United Kingdom
Time Period(s):
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2011 – 2019
Universe:
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Neighbourhood (lower layer super output areas) in England and Wales
Data Type(s):
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administrative records data;
aggregate data;
census/enumeration data
Methodology
Data Source:
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1- The monthly street-level crime, outcome and stop and search data was downloaded on 18th February 2021 from the archive of https://data.police.uk/data/archive/. The data includes all Police Force Area in England and Wales, from January 2011 to December 2019. Note that the data is missing for the Greater Manchester Police from July 2019 until the end of the period. For each month and local authority, the data includes three files: Street, stop and search and outcomes.The street file contains for each crime, its coarse location (nearest map point[1]) within the LSOA, an LSOA identifier and a crime type identifier.The stop and search file the exact date of the stop and search activity, its location (longitude/latitude), age, ethnicity and gender of the searched person, ethnicity of the officer, reason for search and outcome. To link up location to LSOAs we use the National Statistics Postcode Lookup (Feb 2020), provided by the Office for National Statistics on their geoportal site: https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/ons::national-statistics-postcode-lookup-february-2020-1/about. The data, under Royal Mail copyright, is provided under the Open Government Licence v.3.0 The outcome file is not used in this research.The data is freely available and made available under the open Government License v3.0
2- Information on LSOAs are available from the 2011 Census. The data for each specific variable can be extracted from NOMIS at https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/, a service provided by the Office for National Statistics.Specifically we extracted information on ethnic composition (KS201EW), social composition (QS611EW) and population size (KS101EW).The ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
3- Additionally, geographical information about the LSOAs is extracted from the Office for National Statistics geoportal:In particular whether an LSOA is urban or rural:https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/rural-urban-classification-2011-of-lower-layer-super-output-areas-in-england-and-walesthe Local Authority administrating the LSOAs:https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/ons::output-area-to-lower-layer-super-output-area-to-middle-layer-super-output-area-to-local-authority-district-december-2011-lookup-in-england-and-wales-1/exploreThe ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
4- The predicted (quarterly) unemployment rate at the local authority level is extracted from NOMIS https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/, a service provided by the Office for National Statistics.The ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
5- The monthly price of gold is extracted from the London Bullion Metals Authority, https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/precious-metal-prices#/table.“The LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price are the global benchmark prices for unallocated gold and silver delivered in London. Producers, the investment community, banks and central banks, fabricators, jewellers and other consumers as well as market participants from around the globe, transact during the IBA Gold and Silver Auctions and use the benchmarks as reference prices.“We specify the average monthly PM price in GBP. The monthly price of oil is extracted from the world bank commodity markets pink sheet:https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets, specifying the monthly prices.The data are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).The prices are converted from US Dollars to British pounds using the average spot exchange rate (XUMAUSS) provided by the Bank of England under UK Open Government License. The Gold and Oil prices are then converted to January 2020 prices using the monthly Consumer Price Index – All Items (D7BT) available from the Office for National Statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7bt/mm23The ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence. The monthly Economic Policy Uncertainty index for the UK is extracted from: https://www.policyuncertainty.com/uk_monthly.html.These data can be used freely with attribution to the authors, the paper, and the website: 'Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty' by Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom and Steven J. Davis at www.PolicyUncertainty.com.
6- Additional geographical information needed to compute distances and produce maps is available from the Office for National Statistics geoportal.https://statistics.ukdataservice.ac.uk/dataset/2011-census-geography-boundaries-lower-layer-super-output-areas-and-data-zonesThe ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
7- To map coordinates to LSOA, we relied on the postcode lookup, available from the ONS geoportal: https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/ons::national-statistics-postcode-lookup-february-2020-1/aboutThe ONS provided data are under Royal Mail copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
8- To calculate road distances for Figure 3d, we used the Ordnance Survey Open Roads data set, available from the Ordnance Survey website at https://beta.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/os-open-roads. The Ordnance survey data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
2- Information on LSOAs are available from the 2011 Census. The data for each specific variable can be extracted from NOMIS at https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/, a service provided by the Office for National Statistics.Specifically we extracted information on ethnic composition (KS201EW), social composition (QS611EW) and population size (KS101EW).The ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
3- Additionally, geographical information about the LSOAs is extracted from the Office for National Statistics geoportal:In particular whether an LSOA is urban or rural:https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/rural-urban-classification-2011-of-lower-layer-super-output-areas-in-england-and-walesthe Local Authority administrating the LSOAs:https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/ons::output-area-to-lower-layer-super-output-area-to-middle-layer-super-output-area-to-local-authority-district-december-2011-lookup-in-england-and-wales-1/exploreThe ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
4- The predicted (quarterly) unemployment rate at the local authority level is extracted from NOMIS https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/, a service provided by the Office for National Statistics.The ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
5- The monthly price of gold is extracted from the London Bullion Metals Authority, https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/precious-metal-prices#/table.“The LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price are the global benchmark prices for unallocated gold and silver delivered in London. Producers, the investment community, banks and central banks, fabricators, jewellers and other consumers as well as market participants from around the globe, transact during the IBA Gold and Silver Auctions and use the benchmarks as reference prices.“We specify the average monthly PM price in GBP. The monthly price of oil is extracted from the world bank commodity markets pink sheet:https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets, specifying the monthly prices.The data are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).The prices are converted from US Dollars to British pounds using the average spot exchange rate (XUMAUSS) provided by the Bank of England under UK Open Government License. The Gold and Oil prices are then converted to January 2020 prices using the monthly Consumer Price Index – All Items (D7BT) available from the Office for National Statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7bt/mm23The ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence. The monthly Economic Policy Uncertainty index for the UK is extracted from: https://www.policyuncertainty.com/uk_monthly.html.These data can be used freely with attribution to the authors, the paper, and the website: 'Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty' by Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom and Steven J. Davis at www.PolicyUncertainty.com.
6- Additional geographical information needed to compute distances and produce maps is available from the Office for National Statistics geoportal.https://statistics.ukdataservice.ac.uk/dataset/2011-census-geography-boundaries-lower-layer-super-output-areas-and-data-zonesThe ONS provided data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
7- To map coordinates to LSOA, we relied on the postcode lookup, available from the ONS geoportal: https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/ons::national-statistics-postcode-lookup-february-2020-1/aboutThe ONS provided data are under Royal Mail copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
8- To calculate road distances for Figure 3d, we used the Ordnance Survey Open Roads data set, available from the Ordnance Survey website at https://beta.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/os-open-roads. The Ordnance survey data are Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.
[1] Map points are located over the centre point of a street, or “features" such as commercial premises. Mappoints must contains at least eight postal addresses or no postal addresses at all.
Unit(s) of Observation:
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Neighbourhoods (lower layer super output areas) in England and Wales in each month from 2011 to 2019
Geographic Unit:
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Lower layer super output area (LSOA)
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