The determinants of regional crime in Greece: some preliminary findings

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between criminal activity and socioeconomic performance,using annual provincial data in Greece,covering the period 2008 to 2018.The paper uses a panel data approach to explore the nature of the causal associations between economic, social anddemographic covariates such as GDP level, unemployment rate and population density and regionalcrime rates. The results of the panel data estimations indicate that unemployment rates exert a statistically significant effect only on property crimes,while GDP per in habitant and population density are not found to bestatistically important.