Crime in Europe and the United States: dissecting the ‘reversal of misfortunes’
研究发现，如今欧洲的财产和暴力犯罪（除杀人外）比美国更普遍，与三十年前相反。通过分析七国1970-2008年数据，发现人口结构和监禁率是重要决定因素，更严厉的监禁政策可能有效遏制欧洲犯罪。
Contrary to common perceptions, today both property and violent crimes (with\nthe exception of homicides) are more widespread in Europe than in the United\nStates, while the opposite was true thirty years ago. We label this fact as the\n‘reversal of misfortunes’. We investigate what accounts for the reversal by\nstudying the causal impact of demographic changes, incarceration, abortion,\nunemployment and immigration on crime. For this we use time series data\n(1970–2008) from seven European countries and the United States. We find\nthat the demographic structure of the population and the incarceration rate are\nimportant determinants of crime. Our results suggest that a tougher incarceration\npolicy may be an effective way to contrast crime in Europe. Our analysis does\nnot provide information on how incarceration policy should be made tougher nor\ndoes it provide an answer to the question whether such a policy would also be\nefficient from a cost-benefit point of view. We leave this to future research.