What Are The Determinants Of Crime Rate In Russia?

There is an abundance of studies that investigate the factors that influence crime rate in different countries.However,what is lacking is regional analysis of the determinants of crime rate.A regional analysis provides more accurate results because it does not use aggregate variables in the estimation.Focusing on the 82 Federal subject regions of the Russian Federation,this paper examines the determinants of crime rate between the period from 2008 to 2016.This study adopts a panel fixed effects model which includes the following explanatory variables:education,income,unemployment rate,consumer price index,the sales volume of alcohol,vodka and beer,and arrears.The estimated results revealed that education,income and consumer price index have a significant and negative impact on crime rate.The effects of unemployment rate,alcohol and arrears,on the other hand,are positive and noteworthy.Though vodka and beer impact crime rate positively,the effect of beer is more significant than the effect of vodka.The policy implications of these results are discussed in this study.