Market orientation and national homicide rates

Abstract

We studied the influence of market orientation on national homicide rates. Multiple theoretical traditions equate the development and dominance of markets with higher crime rates. Some traditional sociological theoretical claims, however, suggest market expansion should reduce violence. Elias argued that economic interconnectedness demands stable societies, increased sensitivity to others, and self-control. Durkheim maintained that greater division of labor and integration result in fewer offenses against the person, especially with the concomitant development of a religion of humanity. Further, empirical evidence from multiple fields shows that market integration positively covaries with fairness and prosociality, market-oriented societies are more averse to unethical behavior, and globalization reduces national homicide rates. We tested these competing hypotheses using panel data for 88 nations, 2000–2019. We obtained national homicide rates from the World Health Organization’s Mortality Database and employed the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Index to operationalize market orientation. We used pooled cross-sectional models with fixed effects, controlling for common structural covariates of homicide rates. Results revealed a negative and significant association between market orientation and homicide rates, a substantively meaningful effect size, that the effect appears to be concentrated in nations with lower market orientation, and the findings remained consistent across several stability checks.