Microsoft Word Heckman final 2007-03-22c jsb doc



Yüklə 3,43 Mb.
Pdf görüntüsü
səhifə5/17
tarix09.08.2018
ölçüsü3,43 Mb.
#62201
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   17

 

13

educational attainment reduces crime and that the inverse relationship between crime and 



education in figure 5 is not a correlational artifact arising from unobserved variables that are 

common to both crime and education. Using Census data, they show that one more year of 

schooling reduces the probability of incarceration by 0.37 percentage points for blacks, and 0.1 

for whites.

14

  To put this evidence in perspective, 23% of the black-white difference in average 



incarceration rates can be explained by the differences in education between these groups. Using 

the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, they find that the greatest impacts of education are associated 

with reducing arrests for murder, assault, and motor vehicle theft. 

Lochner and Moretti also calculate the social savings from crime reduction associated 

with completing secondary education. They show that a 1% increase in the high school 

graduation rate would yield $1.8 billion dollars in social benefits in 2004 dollars. This increase 

would reduce the number of crimes by more than 94,000 each year (see table 5). The social 

benefits include reduced losses in productivity and wages, lower medical costs, and smaller 

quality-of-life reductions stemming from crime.

15

  They also include reductions in costs of 



incarceration.

16

 



High school graduation confers an extra benefit of 14-26% beyond private returns 

captured by the high school graduate wages that are pocketed by graduates. This is an important 

benefit of education beyond its private return that suggests overall under-investment in the 

population of disadvantaged children at risk for committing crime. Completing high school raises 

a student’s wages by about $10,372 per year (in 2004 dollars), and the direct cost of completing 

one year of secondary school is approximately $8,000 per student in 1997 (in 2004 dollars). 

Looking only at the savings from reduced crime, the return is $1,638-$2,967 per year, so that 

expenditure is cost effective even if we ignore the direct benefits in earnings and even if we 

assume that the benefits decline as the youths grow older. 



 

14

Comparing the effect of educational expenditure with the effect of hiring an additional 



police officer suggests that promoting education may be a better strategy. Using a somewhat 

different framework, Levitt claims that an additional sworn police officer in a large U.S. city 

would reduce annual costs from crime by about $200,000 dollars at a public cost of $80,000 per 

year. These are recurrent annual costs. 

Lochner and Moretti estimate that in steady state it would cost $15,000 per year in terms 

of direct costs to produce enough high school graduates to reduce crime by the same amount. 

This cost ignores foregone earnings in high school but it also ignores all of the benefits from high 

school graduation documented in Heckman, Lochner, and Todd. If Levitt’s estimate is correct, 

educational policy is far more effective per dollar spent than expenditure on police.

17

,



18

  

 



Trends in Children’s Home Environments and the Consequences of Adverse Environments 

Demographers have documented that over the past forty years, the aggregate birth rate has 

declined, but in the past few decades relatively more of all American children born are born into 

adverse environments. The definition of adversity varies among studies, but the measures used 

are strongly interrelated. Most scholars recognize that absence of a father, low levels of financial 

resources, low parental education and ability, a lack of cognitive and emotional stimulation, and 

poor parenting skills are characteristics of adverse environments. Determining the relative 

importance of these factors is an ongoing debate. Each seems to play a factor in affecting child 

outcomes. 

 

Family Structure 

Fewer children are living with two parents who are married. In 2003, 68% of children 



 

15

under 18 lived with two married parents, down from 77% in 1980.



19

  This percentage has 

remained stable since 1995, after trending downward for many years. The percentage of children 

who live with only one parent, or in a home where the parents are not married, increased by 8% 

since 1980 to 28%. The percentage of children who live with no parents remained roughly 

constant around 3-4% during this period. The source of single parenthood has also changed. 

Relatively more children are living with a single parent who has never been married (see figure 

6a). 


The aggregate trends conceal a great deal of variation across demographic groups. In 

2003, 77% of non-Hispanic White children lived with two married parents, while 20% lived with 

only one parent or with unmarried parents. The corresponding percentages for Blacks were 36% 

and 56%. For Hispanics, it was 65% and 31%.

20

  Among Blacks, the percentage of children 



living with a never-married parent has increased dramatically over time.

21

  



 

Non-Marital Childbearing 

Since the 1965 Moynihan Report, many analysts have focused on family structure—the 

absence of a parent and the attendant decline in financial, emotional and cognitive resources—as 

an important source of social problems.

22

  Over time, while the birth rate has fallen, births to 



unmarried women have risen until very recently. 

After rising dramatically since 1940, out-of-wedlock childbearing leveled off in the 1990s 

but remains at a very high level.

23

  The number of births to unmarried women increased from 



1.17 to 1.3 million between 1990 and 1999. The birthrate for unmarried women increased from 

43.8 births per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15-44 years in 1990 to 46.9 in 1994, before falling 

back to 43.9 in 1999.

24

  The percentage of all births to unmarried women has risen from 28% in 



1990 to 33% in 1999, though it has been roughly constant at 32-33% since 1994. To put these 


Yüklə 3,43 Mb.

Dostları ilə paylaş:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   17




Verilənlər bazası müəlliflik hüququ ilə müdafiə olunur ©genderi.org 2024
rəhbərliyinə müraciət

    Ana səhifə