The changing nature of economics of crime

Since its birth in the late 1960s, the `Economics of Crime’ filed has grown briskly, gaining prominence and recognition within the discipline. In this introductory chapter, we document this upward trend and discuss five potential but complementary explanations of the field’s success. The first two, which had been previously highlighted by other authors, are the increasing availability of high-quality survey an administrative data and the expansion of causal inference methodologies following the credibility revolution. We also emphasize the flourishing cross fertilization between economics and other social sciences such as criminology, political science and sociology; the creation and consolidation of various international academic conferences specialized in the economics of crime that meet regularly to provide feedback and facilitate networking; and the persisting levels of crime and violence worldwide, which suggest that crime prevention policies continue to be dissociated from rigorous empirical evidence. The second part of the chapter offers a roadmap of the book.