The effect of local crime on well-being

Christian Krekel and Marie L. Poprawe

No 14-358, KOF Working papers from KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich

Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of local crime on well-being in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a novel data set constructed from official police crime statistics, covering both counties and urban districts for the time period between 1994 and 2012. We find that local area crime has a significantly negative impact on life satisfaction, makes residents worry more frequently, and worry more about crime in Germany. In particular, a 1% increase in the crime frequency ratio results in a 0.043 standard deviation decrease in life satisfaction. This effect is driven almost exclusively by violent crimes, while property crimes and other crimes have no significant impact on well-being.

Keywords: Crime; Well-Being; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hap, nep-law and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kof:wpskof:14-358

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