Three essays on the economic effects of crime on home ownership and suburban economic *growth

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay examines the impact of crime on residential housing decisions through its effect on mortgage default risk. The second essay is also a literature review that examines the relationship between crime and economic growth. The third essay uses a panel data set on 318 U.S. counties from 1982--1997 to examine whether inner-city crime affects suburban economic growth within the metropolitan area and migratory patterns to other metropolitan areas. The dependent variable is suburban county personal income growth. The independent variables include U.S. personal income growth, state personal income growth, county education and other expenditures, both violent and property crime rates within the central city and county total crime rates. A spatial variable, distance from the county to the central city, is also included. Ordinary least squares and random effects models are used to adjust for county and time specific effects. I find violent crime within the central city to have a negative impact on suburban county personal income growth and to have a lessening impact farther away from the central city. However, the impact of property crime is not as clear, perhaps due to simultaneity problems.