Do more educated neighbourhoods experience less property crime? Evidence from Indonesia

This paper identify the causal effect of education on property crime at the district level in Indonesia over the period 2007–2012. Difference generalised method of moments estimation techniques are used to address endogeneity issues. The results show that more educated neighbourhoods experience less crime. Secondary and higher education play a particularly important role in crime reduction. Effects are more pronounced for crimes reported by males than females. One mechanism seems to be that there are fewer opportunities for engaging in criminal behaviour when one is in school. Extreme poverty appears to weaken the extent to which education reduces crime.