The Relationship between Violent Crime and Misery Index: A Specific Case in Iran

Abstract

The economic status of society does affect both kinds and amounts of violent crimes. This paper is going to analyze the relationships between some economic variables in Iran, on one hand, and violent crimes on the other: Economic growth, misery index, and female employment rate are the main economic variables in this research. Proxies of violent crimes in this paper include the number of intentional murders, number of unintentional murders, number of maiming, number of beating documents, and poising documents. Some findings of this paper indicate a positive and significant relationship between economic variables and violent crimes in question in Iran in both the short run and long run. The periods of study are 1981-2016. One policy implication for this work is that increasing the cost of committing the crime, decreasing the misery index, and progress in economic growth, all can decrease violent crimes in Iran.