<pre>This dissertation consists of three independent chapters at the intersection of macroeconomics and labor economics. The first chapter studies the job-search trade-offs between full-time employment, part-time employment, and multiple job holdings. The second chapter explores the macroeconomic relationship between property crime and output in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework. The third chapter studies the causal effect of property crime on output.</pre> <pre>The first chapter develops a search-matching model of the labor market with part-time employment and multiple job holdings. The model is calibrated to data from the CPS between 2001 and 2004. Workers are able to choose their search intensity and are allowed to hold two jobs while firms can choose what type of worker to recruit. When compared to the canonical Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model, this model performs quite well while capturing some empirical regularities. First, the model generates recruiting and vacancy posting rates that move in opposite directions. Second, part-time employment is up to 10 times more responsive than full-time employment. Third, the model suggests that multiple job holding rates are more flexible than observed in the data with the rate changing by as much as 4 percentage points compared to 0.1 percentage points in the data. Finally, the full model is able to capture compositional changes during recessions with the full-time rate declining and the part-time rate increasing. It also produces an empirically consistent increase in the unemployment rate as well as a decrease in output. The DMP model is more muted than in the data for both.</pre> <pre>The second chapter explores how property crime can affect static and dynamic general equilibrium behavior of households and firms. I calibrate a model with a representative firm and heterogeneous households where households have the choice to commit property crime. In contrast to previous literature, I treat crime as a transfer rather than home production. This creates a feedback loop wherein negative productivity shocks increase property crime which further depresses legitimate work and capital accumulation. These responses by households are particularly important when thinking about the effect of property crime on the economy. Household and firm losses account for 24% of compensating variation (CV) and 37% of lost production. This suggests that behavioral responses are quite important when calculating the cost of property crime. Finally, on the margin, decreasing property crime by 1% increases social welfare by 0.19%, but the effect is diminishing suggesting that reducing crime entirely may not be optimal from a policymakers perspective.</pre> <pre>The third chapter estimates the causal effect of property crime on real personal income per capita. Running system GMM on an unbalanced panel of MSA-year pairs suggests that property crime reduces real personal income per capita by a highly statistically significant 13.3%. This implies that the average person loses $4,869 (2009 dollars) per year with real annual personal income per capita totaling $36,615. The effect is driven primarily by larceny-theft and burglary with highly statistically significant coefficients of -0.179 and -0.110 respectively. Estimates for the effect of robbery are unstable, and the effect of motor vehicle theft is statistically significant, but smaller with a coefficient of -0.060.</pre>

An interdisciplinary approach to policy and governance recognizes that many social welfare problems are interrelated, and policy-makers have long recognized a need to address the root causes of these problems. There is much evidence that income inequality is one of these root causes but research suggesting the effect of income inequality is mediated by social capital has complicated the relationship, as have theories of causality that take different approaches. This study takes an ecological approach to these issues to test the relationship between income inequality, social capital and selected adverse outcomes proposed by the relative income hypothesis. The relative income hypothesis posits that the impact of income inequality on adverse outcomes is mediated by social capital. The study used a retrospective cross-sectional design to analyze county-level data for the year 2000 with a structural equation model composed of three constructs: income inequality, modeled by four common measures; a social capital construct based on a model developed by Rupasingha, Goetz and Freshwater (2006); and an adverse outcomes construct designed as a parsimonious measure of social outcomes in four public affairs disciplinary areas. The test of the path presumed by the relative income hypothesis revealed both a direct effect of income inequality and indirect effect of inequality through social capital. However, the direct effect of income inequality on outcomes was significantly larger than the indirect effect, indicating the relationship is moderated, rather than mediated, by social capital. Since the impact of social capital on the selected adverse outcomes was relatively small, and the final model failed to achieve statistical significance, the relative income hypothesis that income inequality exerts its primary effect on outcomes through social capital was rejected.

Although studies examining juvenile recidivism have focused primarily on violent recidivism, the factors that predict recidivism likely differ by offense type. To examine general, property, and violent recidivism, this study combined individual-level data (i.e., offender and case characteristics) from the Mississippi Youth Court Information Data System (MYCIDS) for the years 2009-2011 and contextual-level data (i.e., county characteristics) from the 2010 U.S. Census and the 2010 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Results showed that offender characteristics predicted only general and property recidivism, but case characteristics mattered for all three types (i.e., general, violent, and property recidivism). Contextual characteristics (i.e., the percentage of the population that is male aged 15 to 24) also mattered, but only for property recidivism. These findings have implications for policies and programs related to the treatment of juvenile offenders.

The researcher conducted a critical analysis of the policing of counterfeit crime in South Africa. A pure qualitative research design and approach was adopted. A literature review, interviews and observations were conducted to provide an overview of this problem nationally and internationally. Interview schedules were designed with pre-determined open-ended questions, which allowed participants to explain their perceptions, opinions and viewpoints on the policing of counterfeit in South Africa. Some of the designed questions were mailed to respondents. Questions were posed to members of the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit, members of the South African Police Service’s Crime Prevention Unit, members of the Department of Trade and Industry who deal with counterfeit, prosecutors who normally prosecute counterfeit cases, brand owners/holders/representatives, and attorneys who assist in the policing of counterfeit crime. The findings of this study informed the proposed recommendations for preventative and reactive response mechanisms. These proposed recommendations suggest ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness in policing counterfeit in South Africa. / Criminology and Security Science / Ph. D. (Criminal Justice)