Temporal stability of model parameters in crime rate analysis: An empirical examination

Two common practices in modeling of crime when crime data is available for multiple years are using single-year crime data corresponding to census data and taking the average of crime rate (or count) over multiple years. Current theoretical and empirical literature provides little, if any, rationale in support of either practice. Averaging multiple years is purported to reduce heterogeneity and minimize the measurement error in the year-to-year …