Comparative Study on The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Pakistan and India: An Econometric Analysis

Abstract

Purpose: This current study aims to identify the socioeconomic determinants of crime in Pakistan and India and compare the results of both the countries, which are unemployment, education, poverty, and economic growth. Methodology: The study is quantitative. Time series data for the period 1996 to 2020 has been taken and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to cointegration is applied for empirical verifications Findings: The results show that in Pakistan education and poverty are the important determinants of crime in the long run whereas in the short-run education is found to be the key cause of crime. On the other hand, in India poverty is an important determinant of crime. Conclusion: All over the world, the rate of crime has been increasing over time. The study is unique in the sense that causes of crime is studied in the two major south Asian countries India & Pakistan with a total population of over 1,500 million peoples. The outcome of the study will be helpful for the policymakers to overcome the shortfall in battling the crimes in the countries.