Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
There is ambiguity in the empirical studies of crime economics regarding various income variables used to proxy the expected net gains from crime. As a result, the empirical findings are often mixed or contradictory to one another. This note provides a theoretical argument that relates the net expected gains from crime to a measure of income inequality (the Gini coefficient) and the mean income of a society, thereby clarifying the ambiguity. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.