Suchergebnisse

The more generous social welfare system in Europe is one of the most important differences between the European and the US society. Defenders of the European welfare state argue that it improves social cohesion and prevents crime. On the other hand, the US economy is performing quite well such that crime rates might come down due to better legal income opportunities. This book takes this trade-off as a point of departure and contributes to a better interdisciplinary understanding of the interactions between crime, economic performance and social exclusion. It evaluates the existing economic and criminological research and provides innovative empirical investigations on the basis of international panel data sets from different levels of regional aggregation. Among other aspects, results clearly reveal the crime reducing potential of intact families and the link beween crime and labour market. A special focus is on estimating the consequences of crime, a topic rarely analysed in literature

Die volkswirtschaftlichen Kosten der Kriminalität betragen zwischen drei und sieben Prozent des Bruttoinlandsprodukts. Geeignete Maßnahmen der Kriminalprävention können die Anzahl der Kriminalfälle und somit auch die materiellen und immateriellen Kosten der Kriminalität reduzieren. Eine Möglichkeit der Evaluierung des Erfolgs von Kriminalprävention bestünde darin, anhand der Polizeilichen Kriminalstatistik den Rückgang der Fallzahlen festzustellen. Dieser Aufsatz argumentiert jedoch, dass es sinnvoller ist, über das bloße Zählen hinauszugehen und den Erfolg von Kriminalprävention auch anhand eines Kriminalitätsbelastungsindex zu beurteilen, der die Schwere – und somit die daraus entstehenden Kosten – der jeweiligen Delikte berücksichtigt. Das erleichtert eine unmittelbare Gegenüberstellung der Präventionskosten mit dem erzielbaren Nutzen, nämlich der messbaren Verringerung der Kriminalitätsbelastung. Das wiederum unterstützt die Durchsetzung des grundgesetzlich verankerten Wirtschaftlichkeitsprinzips. Eine umfassende Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse würde eine monetäre Bewertung der Belastung durch Kriminalität erfordern. Bei sinnvoller Festlegung einer alternativen Erfolgseinheit, z. B. eines Quality-Adjusted-Life-Years (QALYs), können Maßnahmen der Prävention auch nicht-monetär verglichen und evaluiert werden. Dieser Aufsatz stellt Möglichkeiten und Grenzen monetärer und nicht-monetärer Ansätze dar.

In Germany, the poor performance in PISA 2000 stimulated a heated public debate and a strong policy response. The government reacted to the low average and remarkable disparities registered by the test, and spurred reforms led to a significant improvement in the country's educational performance and to a reduction of the gap between children from advantaged and disadvantaged educational backgrounds. Still, between-group achievement inequalities persist within the country. This paper, first, informs about important policy reforms following the PISA shock in 2000. It further gives a description of the current situation and persisting inequalities at secondary schools, with particular attention paid to students with migratory backgrounds.

"Two alternative hypotheses - referred to as opportunity- and stigma-based behavior - suggest that the magnitude of the link between unemployment and crime also depends on preexisting local crime levels. In order to analyze conjectured nonlinearities between both variables, we use quantile regressions applied to German district panel data. While both conventional OLS and quantile regressions confirm the positive link between unemployment and crime for property crimes, results for assault differ with respect to the method of estimation. Whereas conventional mean regressions do not show any significant effect (which would confirm the usual result found for violent crimes in the literature), quantile regression reveals that size and importance of the relationship are conditional on the crime rate. The partial effect is significantly positive for moderately low and median quantiles of local assault rates." (author's abstract)

Two alternative hypotheses - referred to as opportunity- and stigma-based behavior - suggest that the magnitude of the link between unemployment and crime also depends on preexisting local crime levels. In order to analyze conjectured nonlinearities between both variables, we use quantile regressions applied to German district panel data. While both conventional OLS and quantile regressions confirm the positive link between unemployment and crime for property crimes, results for assault differ with respect to the method of estimation. Whereas conventional mean regressions do not show any significant effect (which would confirm the usual result found for violent crimes in the literature), quantile regression reveals that size and importance of the relationship are conditional on the crime rate. The partial effect is significantly positive for moderately low and median quantiles of local assault rates. Adapted from the source document.