Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of economic conditions on various categories of criminal activities in Malaysia for the period 1973‐2003. Design/methodology/approach: The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure was employed as the main tool. Dynamic ordin...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Habibullah, Muzafar Shah, Abdul Hamid, Baharom
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Emerald Group Publishing 2009
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/1/Crime%20and%20economic%20conditions%20in%20Malaysia.pdf
_version_ 1848842219979538432
author Habibullah, Muzafar Shah
Abdul Hamid, Baharom
author_facet Habibullah, Muzafar Shah
Abdul Hamid, Baharom
author_sort Habibullah, Muzafar Shah
building UPM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of economic conditions on various categories of criminal activities in Malaysia for the period 1973‐2003. Design/methodology/approach: The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure was employed as the main tool. Dynamic ordinary least squares was also used to check the robustness of the results. Findings: The results indicate that murder, armed robbery, rape, assault, daylight burglary, and motorcycle theft exhibit long‐run relationships with economic conditions, and the causal effect in all cases runs from economic conditions to crime rates and not vice versa. In the long‐run, strong economic performances have a positive impact on murder, rape, assault, daylight burglary, and motorcycle theft, while on the other hand, economic conditions have negative impact on armed robbery. Research limitations/implications: Further researches using other macroeconomic variables and also other countries are encouraged. Practical implications: The important implication of this result is that real gross national product per capita is an exogenous variable and it is, therefore, useful for fiscal policy variable. Government of the day should seriously consider the results of this study in any crimefighting policies that are formulated. Originality/value: An economic viewpoint of criminal activities in Malaysia.
first_indexed 2025-11-15T07:55:40Z
format Article
id upm-13821
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-15T07:55:40Z
publishDate 2009
publisher Emerald Group Publishing
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling upm-138212018-08-14T08:42:33Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/ Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia Habibullah, Muzafar Shah Abdul Hamid, Baharom Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of economic conditions on various categories of criminal activities in Malaysia for the period 1973‐2003. Design/methodology/approach: The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure was employed as the main tool. Dynamic ordinary least squares was also used to check the robustness of the results. Findings: The results indicate that murder, armed robbery, rape, assault, daylight burglary, and motorcycle theft exhibit long‐run relationships with economic conditions, and the causal effect in all cases runs from economic conditions to crime rates and not vice versa. In the long‐run, strong economic performances have a positive impact on murder, rape, assault, daylight burglary, and motorcycle theft, while on the other hand, economic conditions have negative impact on armed robbery. Research limitations/implications: Further researches using other macroeconomic variables and also other countries are encouraged. Practical implications: The important implication of this result is that real gross national product per capita is an exogenous variable and it is, therefore, useful for fiscal policy variable. Government of the day should seriously consider the results of this study in any crimefighting policies that are formulated. Originality/value: An economic viewpoint of criminal activities in Malaysia. Emerald Group Publishing 2009 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/1/Crime%20and%20economic%20conditions%20in%20Malaysia.pdf Habibullah, Muzafar Shah and Abdul Hamid, Baharom (2009) Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia. International Journal of Social Economics, 36 (11). pp. 1071-1081. ISSN 0306-8293; ESSN: 1758-6712 https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/03068290910992624 10.1108/03068290910992624
spellingShingle Habibullah, Muzafar Shah
Abdul Hamid, Baharom
Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia
title Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia
title_full Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia
title_fullStr Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia
title_short Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia
title_sort crime and economic conditions in malaysia
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/13821/1/Crime%20and%20economic%20conditions%20in%20Malaysia.pdf