Less Cash, Less Crime: Evidence from the Electronic Benefit Transfer Program
- 1 May 2017
- journal article
- research article
- Published by University of Chicago Press in The Journal of Law and Economics
- Vol. 60 (2), 361-383
- https://doi.org/10.1086/693745
Abstract
It has been long recognized that cash plays a critical role in fueling street crime because of its liquidity and transactional anonymity. In this paper, we investigate whether the reduction in the circulation of cash on the streets associated with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) program implementation had an effect on crime. To address this question, we exploit the variation in the timing of EBT implementation across Missouri counties and counties in the states bordering Missouri. According to our results, the EBT program had a negative and significant effect on the overall crime rate and specifically for burglary, assault, and larceny. The point estimates indicate that the overall crime rate decreased by 9.2 percent in response to the EBT program. Interestingly, the significant drop in crime in the United States over several decades coincided with a period of steady decline in the proportion of financial transactions involving cash.Keywords
Other Versions
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- State Firearm Sales and Criminal Activity: Evidence from Firearm Background ChecksSouthern Economic Journal, 2016
- The impact of electronic financial payments on crimeInformation Economics and Policy, 2014
- Factors That Contribute to Becoming UnbankedJournal of Consumer Affairs, 2012
- Welfare Payments and CrimeThe Review of Economics and Statistics, 2011
- Functional forms for the negative binomial model for count dataEconomics Letters, 2008
- Are Idle Hands the Devil’s Workshop? Incapacitation, Concentration, and Juvenile CrimeAmerican Economic Review, 2003
- Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on CrimeThe Journal of Law and Economics, 2001
- Poisson-Based Regression Analysis of Aggregate Crime RatesJournal of Quantitative Criminology, 2000
- Geographies of Financial Exclusion: Financial Abandonment in Britain and the United StatesTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 1995
- The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: An Analysis of Daily Homicide CountsJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1990