Job Displacement, Unemployment, and Crime: Evidence from Danish Microdata and Reforms
Journal: Duo Research Archive (University of Oslo)
Year: 2018

This paper estimates the individual impact of a worker’s job loss on his/her criminal activity. Using a matched employer-employee longitudinal data set on unemployment, crime, and taxes for all residents in Denmark, the paper builds each worker’s timeline of job separation, unemployment, and crime. The paper focuses on displaced workers: high-tenure workers who lose employment during a mass-layoff event at any point between 1990 and 1994 (inclusive). Initial local industrial specialization sugge