Preferences predict who commits crime among young men

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Standard

Preferences predict who commits crime among young men. / Epper, Thomas; Fehr, Ernst; Hvidberg, Kristoffer Balle; Kreiner, Claus Thustrup; Leth-Petersen, Søren; Rasmussen, Gregers Nytoft.

In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 119, No. 6, e2112645119, 08.02.2022.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Harvard

Epper, T, Fehr, E, Hvidberg, KB, Kreiner, CT, Leth-Petersen, S & Rasmussen, GN 2022, 'Preferences predict who commits crime among young men', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 119, no. 6, e2112645119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2112645119

APA

Epper, T., Fehr, E., Hvidberg, K. B., Kreiner, C. T., Leth-Petersen, S., & Rasmussen, G. N. (2022). Preferences predict who commits crime among young men. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(6), [e2112645119]. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2112645119

Vancouver

Epper T, Fehr E, Hvidberg KB, Kreiner CT, Leth-Petersen S, Rasmussen GN. Preferences predict who commits crime among young men. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2022 Feb 8;119(6). e2112645119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2112645119

Author

Epper, Thomas ; Fehr, Ernst ; Hvidberg, Kristoffer Balle ; Kreiner, Claus Thustrup ; Leth-Petersen, Søren ; Rasmussen, Gregers Nytoft. / Preferences predict who commits crime among young men. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2022 ; Vol. 119, No. 6.

Bibtex

@article{5c483592c3f449ef92905cc30dddee9f,
title = "Preferences predict who commits crime among young men",
abstract = "Understanding who commits crime and why is a key topic in social science and important for the design of crime prevention policy. In theory, people who commit crime face different social and economic incentives for criminal activity than other people, or they evaluate the costs and benefits of crime differently because they have different preferences. Empirical evidence on the role of preferences is scarce. Theoretically, risk-tolerant, impatient, and self-interested people are more prone to commit crime than risk-averse, patient, and altruistic people. We test these predictions with a unique combination of data where we use incentivized experiments to elicit the preferences of young men and link these experimental data to their criminal records. In addition, our data allow us to control extensively for other characteristics such as cognitive skills, socioeconomic background, and self-control problems. We find that preferences are strongly associated with actual criminal behavior. Impatience and, in particular, risk tolerance are still strong predictors when we include the full battery of controls. Crime propensities are 8 to 10 percentage points higher for the most risk-tolerant individuals compared to the most risk averse. This effect is half the size of the effect of cognitive skills, which is known to be a very strong predictor of criminal behavior. Looking into different types of crime, we find that preferences significantly predict property offenses, while self-control problems significantly predict violent, drug, and sexual offenses.",
keywords = "Faculty of Social Sciences, crime, risk preference, time preference, self-control, altruism",
author = "Thomas Epper and Ernst Fehr and Hvidberg, {Kristoffer Balle} and Kreiner, {Claus Thustrup} and S{\o}ren Leth-Petersen and Rasmussen, {Gregers Nytoft}",
year = "2022",
month = feb,
day = "8",
doi = "10.1073/pnas.2112645119",
language = "English",
volume = "119",
journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
issn = "0027-8424",
publisher = "The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
number = "6",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Preferences predict who commits crime among young men

AU - Epper, Thomas

AU - Fehr, Ernst

AU - Hvidberg, Kristoffer Balle

AU - Kreiner, Claus Thustrup

AU - Leth-Petersen, Søren

AU - Rasmussen, Gregers Nytoft

PY - 2022/2/8

Y1 - 2022/2/8

N2 - Understanding who commits crime and why is a key topic in social science and important for the design of crime prevention policy. In theory, people who commit crime face different social and economic incentives for criminal activity than other people, or they evaluate the costs and benefits of crime differently because they have different preferences. Empirical evidence on the role of preferences is scarce. Theoretically, risk-tolerant, impatient, and self-interested people are more prone to commit crime than risk-averse, patient, and altruistic people. We test these predictions with a unique combination of data where we use incentivized experiments to elicit the preferences of young men and link these experimental data to their criminal records. In addition, our data allow us to control extensively for other characteristics such as cognitive skills, socioeconomic background, and self-control problems. We find that preferences are strongly associated with actual criminal behavior. Impatience and, in particular, risk tolerance are still strong predictors when we include the full battery of controls. Crime propensities are 8 to 10 percentage points higher for the most risk-tolerant individuals compared to the most risk averse. This effect is half the size of the effect of cognitive skills, which is known to be a very strong predictor of criminal behavior. Looking into different types of crime, we find that preferences significantly predict property offenses, while self-control problems significantly predict violent, drug, and sexual offenses.

AB - Understanding who commits crime and why is a key topic in social science and important for the design of crime prevention policy. In theory, people who commit crime face different social and economic incentives for criminal activity than other people, or they evaluate the costs and benefits of crime differently because they have different preferences. Empirical evidence on the role of preferences is scarce. Theoretically, risk-tolerant, impatient, and self-interested people are more prone to commit crime than risk-averse, patient, and altruistic people. We test these predictions with a unique combination of data where we use incentivized experiments to elicit the preferences of young men and link these experimental data to their criminal records. In addition, our data allow us to control extensively for other characteristics such as cognitive skills, socioeconomic background, and self-control problems. We find that preferences are strongly associated with actual criminal behavior. Impatience and, in particular, risk tolerance are still strong predictors when we include the full battery of controls. Crime propensities are 8 to 10 percentage points higher for the most risk-tolerant individuals compared to the most risk averse. This effect is half the size of the effect of cognitive skills, which is known to be a very strong predictor of criminal behavior. Looking into different types of crime, we find that preferences significantly predict property offenses, while self-control problems significantly predict violent, drug, and sexual offenses.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - crime

KW - risk preference

KW - time preference

KW - self-control

KW - altruism

U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2112645119

DO - 10.1073/pnas.2112645119

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 35101977

VL - 119

JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

SN - 0027-8424

IS - 6

M1 - e2112645119

ER -

ID: 291229077