Impatience and crime. Evidence from the NLSY97

Abstract

We empirically test the relationship between crime and impatience at the individual level, exploiting data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). Besides providing information on violent, property, and drug crimes, NLSY97 allows us to observe different behaviors, sharing impatience as a common latent factor. We use factor analysis to extract this common factor as a measure of impatience. Estimates from a Logit model suggest a positive association between impatience and crime. This relationship differs across violent, property, and drug crimes, but we do not find significant heterogeneities when comparing individuals according to gender, parental education, and ethnic groups. The main result is robust to different factor analysis specifications and controls for risk preferences. Our findings support policies aimed at influencing individual time preferences as an indirect way to combat crime.