Title: Age in Cohort, School Indiscipline and Crime: Regression Discontinuity Estimates for Queensland

Speaker: Michael Kidd, RMIT University 

Time: November 30th, 2018 10:00–11:30

Venue: Conference Room 106B, Zhonghui Building (IESR, JNU College of Economics)

About the speaker:

Michael Kidd has been a Professor of Economics at RMIT's School of Economics, Finance and Marketing since 2015. He received PhD from Queen’s University at Kingston (Ontario, Canada), and then held professorial and senior leadership roles at University of Aberdeen, Deakin and Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Michael Kidd's research interests include labour and health economics, and he also dabbles in some experimental work. His work has appeared in such journals as Labour Economics, Journal of International Migration and Integration, Journal of Comparative Economics, Canadian Public Policy, Economic Modelling, and others.

Abstract:

Youth crime involves millions of people each year, imposing extensive costs on society. This paper examines the effect of school starting age on in-school disciplinary sanctions and youth crime. Using administrative data matching education and criminal records for Queensland State secondary school students, the paper exploits school-entry administrative rules to define a regression discontinuity design. Younger pupils in cohort appear to receive more disciplinary sanctions during secondary school and to commit more crime after secondary school. A recent school-leaving age reform is also exploited to show that this crime-age profile is consistent with an incapacitation effect of school on crime.