中文摘要

青少年犯罪問題在美國一直是很嚴重的社會問題，雖然青少年族群人口僅占總人口數13%，但在每年被拘捕的犯人中，卻已超過三成是青少年。除了「家庭背景」及「成長環境」這兩項因素造成青少年行為偏差，爰多數美國人自中學起即開始工作，大學生半工半讀更為普遍，「經濟誘因」與青少年犯罪之關聯益更形密切。本研究透過建立一個模擬動態模型，依據美國 1997 年青年長期追蹤資料庫，運用模擬動差法進行評估，探討青少年如何考量學歷以及犯罪行為對其個人所得造成之影響，從而決定是否繼續就學或犯罪。研究結果顯示，學歷與薪資的正向關係有助於提升青少年就學意願，特別是對已完成十一年級或修完大三課程的學生；此外預期犯罪所得及刑期的長短對青少年犯罪行為亦有相當程度的影響。

English Abstract

For the past decade, Youth crime has been an important issue in the United States with debates raging over why it happens and how government policy can be modified to reduce the crime participation of youth. Over the past 15 years, more than 1/3 of total arrests came from people aged 16 to 24, while the cohorts had only 12-13% of the US population. Although family background is thought to be an important factor on juvenile crime, research shows that young individuals are sensitive to economic incentives similarly to adults, especially in the country where people start working when they are teenagers. Considering the fact that most youth face the transition from school to work and the peak age of crime involvement from mid-teens to early twenties, a dynamic model is set up to analyze how education, criminal records, and punishment affect expected earnings, wage and illegal income, and therefore affect the schooling decision and crime involvement of youth. The model is estimated through the Simulated Method of Moments using the data of National Longitudinal Survey 1997(NLSY97) from 1997 to 2001. 

資料來源：https://goo.gl/YJZoPa