Crossings, Crime and Confinement: Three Essays in Applied Microeconomics

Abstract

Chapter 1 provides an introduction. Chapter 2 uses 19 waves of HILDA to study whether wage assimilation occurs between second-generation and third-generation Australians. No prior study has compared wage differences between the second and third generations of Australians while also accounting for changes over time. Using Hausman-Taylor estimates, I find no significant difference between second and third-generation wages, for both men and women, while studying the second-generation as a homogenous group. Then, I categorise second-generation Australians into four groups according to OECD, English-speaking, geographical, and Western origins. I find second-generation men with non-Western origins earn a lower wage, on average, through most of the survey period. And second-generation women with non-Western origins perform worse than third-generation women in five waves. A further finding that emerges is that second-generation men with non-OECD origins earn lower wages on average between 2010 and 2019. When considering second-generation non-OECD women, no such difference is found. Thus, this study concludes that wage differences exist between some groups of second-generation Australians and third-generation Australians.

Chapter 3 studies the effect of education on crime in New South Wales, Australia. In 2010, the minimum school leaving age (MSLA) increased from 15 to 17 years. The increase in the MSLA serves as an instrumental variable to solve for the endogeneity issues surrounding this link between education and crime. This study uses information for the cohorts born between 1993 and 1996: where the 1993 and 1994 cohorts serve as control cohorts, and the 1995 and 1996 cohorts serve as treated cohorts. The Reoffending Database (ROD) contains the criminal histories and demographic information of all offenders in NSW who were born in 1984 or after. To understand the impact of education on the offending rates in NSW, I combine the ROD with the 2011 Australian Census. The change in the MSLA serves as an instrumental variable and predicts the proportion of individuals in school or employment for each local government area and birth-cohort combination. This chapter finds a 1 percent increase in the proportion of individuals in school or employment is associated with a 1.2 percent decline in the proportion of offenders and a 1.3 percent decline in the proportion of person offences. It also finds a significant reduction in the proportion of total, property and financial offences-as well as an increase in drug offences. Thus, this chapter concludes that the change in the minimum school leaving age does decrease offending rates.

Chapter 4 uses a nationally representative sample of juvenile offenders to detect quality differences between publicly owned and operated juvenile facilities and privately owned and operated facilities. The 2003 Survey of Youth in Residential Placement collected data from facilities across the US. The data provides information relating to living conditions, treatment by staff, programs within facilities, methods of control and the perception of fairness within facilities. Compared to publicly owned and operated facilities, privately owned facilities provide better programs. Staff also use harsher methods of physical control at publicly owned and operated facilities. Therefore, preliminary investigations suggest that quality differences exist between publicly owned and operated facilities and privately owned and operated facilities. The results indicate that private facilities might provide better conditions of confinement than public facilities. Show more