Crime, fertility, and economic growth: Theory and evidence

This paper studies the link between crime and fertility and the way by which they jointly impact on economic growth. In a three-period overlapping generations model, where health status in adulthood depends on health in childhood, adult agents allocate their time to work, leisure, child rearing and criminal activities. An autonomous increase in the probability offenders face in escaping apprehension, increases both crime and fertility non-monotonically, giving rise to an ambiguous effect on growth. A cross-country empirical examination, based on data that span four decades, supports the non-linear effects on both crime and fertility. At the same time, it reveals a negative effect on output growth.