PUBLIC POLICIES, SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND CRIMES IN PAKISTAN: A TIME SERIES ANALYSIS

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the impact of public policies about taxes, defense expenditures, loans and grants on crimes in Pakistan over the period from 1980 to 2019. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach has utilized to check cointegration among the variables of the model and Vector Error-Correction model is applied for estimating short run dynamics of the model. The outcomes of the analysis show that defense expenditures, loans and grants more taxes and rising economic misery have a positive and significant impact on crime rates in the case of Pakistan. For the reduction of crime rate government of Pakistan must reduce taxes, defense expenditures, loans and grants and economic misery in the country. For reducing unemployment, government of Pakistan must establish such economic environment which boost new jobs and stable inflation. Moreover, skill development programs must be initiated, so that youth can get self-employment rather than searching government and private jobs. Inflation can be controlled by putting checks on rising production costs.