Crime: Why don’t Economists have much to Say about it?

Abstract

The paper examines how crime came to be excluded from the purview of conventional economics through the legacy of the classical tradition. It looks at how the study of economic activity was consequently restricted to the examination of lawful market transactions which came to define the scope of the discipline. The paper reviews the scope of illegal economic activity by corporations, illegal businesses and private individuals. It concludes that the inclusion of these phenomena within the discipline of economics necessitates a new approach to a number of areas such as economic planning, taxation and the distribution of wealth as well as a redefinition of the object of study of economics to include all productive activities not just those sanctioned by law and undertaken in the context of markets.

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