Criminalidade no Brasil e seus aspectos econômicos no período 1990-2010: uma análise de vetores autorregressivos para dados em painel – PVAR

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of the economic aspects of the crime for the period 1990-2010, in order to check the main causes for the sharp increase in crime in the Brazilian states. To achieve the proposed objective, the study will be based on economic theory Becker Crime (1968). For this, data from the System Information Ministry of Health (SIM-DATASUS) will be used, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and the National Treasury Secretariat (STN). Statistics show that young people are the main victims of violence, especially homicides. In this sense, this work will consist of two models, highlighting the influence of education variables, income, income inequality and poverty on homicide rates in the Brazilian states. For the first model were considered the individuals (men and women) of all ages. The second model took into account only individuals (men and women) young people, aged 15-29 years. The idea is to check the magnitude of the impact of economic variables between one model and another, since the crime has affected mainly younger individuals. Thus, there will be a study considering the crime in the 27 federal units of Brazil, by building an unbalanced panel data, using the VAR Panel technique (PVAR), proposed by Holtz-Eakin et al. (1998) to identify the possible relationship between economic factors and crime, through the impulse response and variance decomposition functions. Descriptive statistics show that in recent years, homicide rates have shown a steady increase, in which young people are the main victims. For both models, the economic variables showed a similar behavior. The results obtained by PVAR through impulse response functions and variance decomposition shows that the per capita household income and the incidence of poor negatively affects homicide rates in the Brazilian states. On the other hand, evidence shows that shocks on the gini index provoke positive reactions on homicide rates throughout the series. Thus, there is the need for public policies focusing on the income gap and / or reformulation of national public policy in a way that promotes social improvement, in order to combat more effectively the crime in Brazil.