Income Inequality And Crim

Since the Reform and Opening Up,the living standards of Chinese residents have been continuously improved,and the quality of economic development has been significantly enhanced.After the implementation of the Reform and Opening Up policy,the income distribution system that relies on the legal operation and working to get rich are accompanied by an increasing income gap in our society,the problem of class solidification has become more and more obvious,and the overall development level and the income gap have shown synchronization.The national Gini coefficient broke through the warning line of 0.4 in the early 2000 s and reached 0.465 in 2016.At the same time,the national crime rate has also increased significantly.The number of cases involving the approval of suing by the procuratorates has increased from 3,640 thousand in 2000 to 4,860 thousand in 2019.The number of prosecutions also increased from 704,000 to 1,706,000,with a compound growth rate of 1.5% and 5.3%,respectively.The Yangtze River Delta region is one of the regions with the most active economic development,the highest degree of openness,and the strongest innovation ability in China.However,from the perspective of the disposable income of urban and rural residents,although the overall trend of steady growth,the residents’ income inequality continues to increase.The Gini coefficient of the Yangtze River Delta region has risen from 0.32 in 1995 to 0.37 in 2012,which is close to the international warning line of 0.4.At the same time,the total number of regional crime cases has increased from more than 100,000 in 2000 to more than 330,000 in 2020,an increase of more than 2 times.And the crime rate also rose from 0.54‰ to 1.42‰.The Chinese nineteenth CPC Central Committee Fifth Plenary Session proposed a long-term goal for 2035,including "more obvious and substantial progress in common prosperity for all people".This is our Party’s new guideline for narrowing the income gap of Chinese residents,reducing income inequality,and promoting common services under the new situation.This paper attempts to respond to the call of the country’s "Common Prosperity" idea,explore the relationship between income inequality and crime rate,so as to help the government recognize the gap in income distribution and come up to some suggestions on crime issues arising from income inequality.This paper conducts research from the city level,takes social and economic factors often involved in crime issues as control variables,focuses on the impact of income inequality on crime rates,and provides policy recommendations for the government to control crime rates and narrow income gaps.This paper consists of six chapters:Chapter 1 is the introduction.This chapter briefly introduces the background and significance of the subject,and points out the innovations and deficiencies of this paper.Chapter 2 is the literature review.From four perspectives: crime researches,income inequality researches,researches on income inequality and crime,and researches on other factors and crime.This chapter sorts out domestic and foreign literature,summarizes and comments on existing literature,and provides a valuable reference for the paper’s research perspectives,selections of explanatory variables and models.Chapter 3 is the current situation analysis.This chapter briefly introduces the current development characteristics and status quo of the income gap and crime rate in China and the Yangtze River Delta region.Chapter 4 is about the theoretical basis and the influence mechanism.This chapter briefly expounds the theory of criminology and crime economics,and sorts out the mechanism by which various socioeconomic factors,including income inequality,affect crime rates.Chapter 5 is the empirical analysis part.This chapter conducts an empirical study on the relationship between income inequality and crime rate,introduces the setting of the econometric model in the empirical study,and the selection and measurement methods of each variable index.And this part highlights how to calculate the Gini coefficient based on a simple and accurate calculation method adopted by Hu Zu Guang in 2004,which is to use the disposable income data of urban and rural residents grouped by income level to measure the degree of income inequality within the city.The empirical results are then analyzed,including benchmark regression analysis,heterogeneity analysis,mechanism testing,and robustness testing.Chapter 6 is the conclusions and policy recommendations.This chapter will compare the results of empirical analysis to draw research conclusions,and from the perspective of reducing income gaps and controlling crime rates,it will provide some suggestions for the government.Based on a fixed-effects model,this paper uses panel data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2013 to 2019 to study the relationship between income inequality and crime rates.The result shows that income inequality has a significant impact on the crime rate.The specific performance is that for every 1 percentage point increase in the Gini coefficient,the crime rate increases by 0.970 and 0.906 percentage points respectively,confirming that the expansion of income inequality will indeed lead to an increase in the crime rate.And The government can effectively suppress criminal behavior by increasing welfare spending,and it can also effectively identify and detect latent criminal behavior by increasing judicial spending.At the same time,the heterogeneity test shows that income inequality has a greater impact on crime rates in small-scale cities than in large-scale cities.And it has a significant positive impact on both property and non-property crime,with a greater impact on property crime.In addition,the result of the mechanism test shows that income inequality can indirectly affect the crime rate by affecting government welfare spending.Finally,the study did not find a bidirectional causal relationship between income inequality and crime rates,but we argue that caution is still needed.