EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND MIGRATION ON THE CRIME RATES WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Özet

Öz In this study, effects of economic development and migration on the crime rates are investigated for the European Union countries. In the study, economic development level is measured in terms of gross domestic product per capita in purchasing power parity (GDP per capita in PPP). Six crime categories are considered; intentional homicides, rape, assault, sexual assault, theft and vandalism as a number of occurrences per hundred thousand inhabitants of countries. Migration rate is measured as a percentage of migrants of the total population per year. Data were obtained from Euro stat database and covers 30 nations for the period of 2008-2013. In the study, we first performed principal component analysis (PCA). The objective of the PCA is to determine the crime factor scores which represent a crime levels as a whole for each of the nations, and also to determine the important components of these crime factor scores. Then, a cross-country regression analysis performed as crime factor scores a dependent variable and economic development level and migration rate as independent variables. Results show that, a significant positive relation exists between the economic development level and the crime factor scores. Also, high migration rates don’t lead to higher crime rates.