Temporal Causality and the Dynamics of Crime in Turkey

This study is concerned with understanding of the factors of aggregate, nonviolent and violent crime categories in Turkey for the period 1965-2009. The determinants of all crime categories are related to selected socio-economic factors. Bounds testing approach to cointegration is employed to test the existence of long-run relationship amongst the variables. Cointegration analysis yields the major contributors of crime are income and unemployment. The direction of causalities between the variables are established using within and out of sample causality tests. The findings from this study present the dynamics of aggregate, violent and non-violent crimes to design and implement any relevant policy measures to combat them.