The generous social welfare system in Europe is one of the most important differences between Europe and the US. Defenders of the European welfare state argue that it improves social cohesion and prevents crime. Others argue that the "invisible hand" in the US economy is equally powerful in reducing unemployment and preventing crime. This book takes this trade-off as a starting point and contributes to a better interdisciplinary understanding of the interactions between crime, economic performance and social exclusion. In doing so, it evaluates the existing economic and criminological research and provides innovative empirical investigations on the basis of international panel data sets from different levels of regional aggregation.

1 Introduction.- 2 Descriptive Evidence on Magnitude and Development of Crime in Europe.- 2.1 Data Sources and Problems of Measurement.- 2.2 Crime in its Various Dimensions.- 2.3 Crime and Potential Factors of Crime.- 3 Socio-economic Causes, Interactions and Consequences of Crime.- 3.1 Plan of the Survey.- 3.2 Research on Causes and Interactions of Crime.- 3.3 The Impact of Crime on Economic Performance.- 3.4 Summary of Crime Related Indicators.- 4 Development of a Methodological Framework for the Empirical Analysis of Crime.- 4.1 The Methodology.- 4.2 The Parameterised Model.- 5 Criminometric Results on Causes and Consequences of Crime in Europe.- 5.1 Data Availability.- 5.2 Empirical Results Based on National Data.- 5.3 Empirical Results Based on Regional Data.- 6 Conclusions.- Results Known from the Scientific Literature.- Data and Methods.- Causes of Crime.- Consequences of Crime.- Interpretation of Results, Policy Conclusions.- References.