Heavy Trac: Determination of Homicide Rates across the 50 United States

Presenter: Jason Parker, PhD candidate – University of Texas at Dallas Murder is fundamentally different from other crime rates by using an approximate factor structure estimated by principal components. Using factor number estimation from Bai and Ng (2002), all state-level crime rate panels (e.g. murder, burglary) in the U.S. are found to have single common factors after serially demeaning. However, cross-sectionally demeaning reveals zero common factors in every panel except murder implying that the national average is an excellent proxy for the common factors apart from murder. Common factor identification developed in Parker and Sul (2013) reveals that the determinants for the murder rate factor are the murder rates of California and Texas. This is taken as evidence that drug-trafficking is the source of cross-sectional dependence of state-level murder rates.

More information at: http://www.uregina.ca/events/heavy-trac-determination-of-homicide-rates-across-the-50-united-states