ATHENS, Ga. — A recent study by the University of Georgia found that how easy it is to buy, sell, work or invest in a country can have a big impact on how much murder happens.
According to the study, researchers found that even a one-point shift in what they call market freedom can lead to a 22% decrease in homicides.
Market freedom includes the ability for individuals to work, buy or sell, while also have more legal protections in place and fewer obstacles to participating in the market.
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“If a trader wants to make a living, they must trade with all sorts of people who look or speak differently from them,” William Pridemore, lead author of the study, Marienthal Professor of Sociology and head of the department of sociology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement.
For the study, UGA examined annual data from 88 countries across 20 years, using a scale of market orientation based on scores from the Economic Freedom of the World Index.
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Using those figures, which include tax rates, business and labor market regulations, independence of court systems and homicide rates, UGA researchers found that countries where voluntary exchanges were embraced were more likely to see fewer murders.
UGA said a one point increase in strengthening things like property rights and freeing up open trade had a direct correspondence with a drop in homicide rates, sometimes as much as a one-fifth decrease.
“Violence rates tell us something deeply fundamental about a society. They tap into societal, cultural and historical factors. We now know that, together with several other structural and cultural characteristics, market integration varies with violence rates,” Pridemore said. “It’s really important to see this variation from nation to nation and to recognize it has a meaningful, real-world effect.”
The research said that countries that shift toward freer markets showed a more prominent impact in homicide reduction, though for countries that were above average on market orientation, the impact was absent.
The study said that meant “once market integration reaches a particular limit, it no longer exerts a violence reduction effect.”
Additional exceptions were noted for countries in Latin America, where there is no association between homicide numbers and increased market orientation in recent decades.
Pridemore also said that the more people interact with others with different needs through the market, “the more it can also actually increase social cohesion. The more time you spend around people that are unlike you, you begin to realize that we all have similar wants and needs. It helps to humanize us to each other.”
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