Entertainment and crime

Abstract

In this paper I explore the effects of entertainment on aggregate crime rates. I track hourly crime data to analyze the behavior of offenses in a time window around football games played by the national team, in a country were football is the most popular entertainment. I find that total offenses decrease 13 percent during highly relevant games, an effect that comes exclusively from property crime. The decrease in property crime during the game is partially compensated by an increase in non-property crime in the aftermath of these games. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.