Alcohol Consumption, Deterrence and Crime in New York City

39 Pages Posted: 26 Jan 2013 Last revised: 8 Mar 2023

See all articles by Hope Corman

Hope Corman

Rider University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Naci H. Mocan

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: January 2013

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between alcohol consumption, deterrence, and crime for New York City. We examine high-frequency time-series data from 1983 to 2001 for one specific location to examine the impacts of variations in both alcohol consumption and deterrence on seven "index" crimes. We tackle the endogeneity of arrests and the police force by exploiting the temporal independence of crime and deterrence in these high-frequency data, and we address the endogeneity of alcohol by using instrumental variables where alcohol sales are instrumented with city and state alcohol taxes and minimum drinking age. We find that alcohol consumption is positively related to assault, rape, and larceny crimes but not murder, robbery, burglary, or motor vehicle theft. We find strong deterrence for all crimes except assault and rape. Generally, deterrence effects are stronger than alcohol effects.

Suggested Citation

Corman, Hope and Mocan, Naci H., Alcohol Consumption, Deterrence and Crime in New York City (January 2013). NBER Working Paper No. w18731, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2207266

Hope Corman (Contact Author)

Rider University ( email )

2083 Lawrenceville Road
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
United States
609-895-5559 (Phone)
609-896-5304 (Fax)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Naci H. Mocan

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge - Department of Economics ( email )

Department of economics
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-6308
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
53
Abstract Views
567
Rank
681,640
PlumX Metrics