Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India

Tejendra Pratap Singh and Sujata Visaria
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Sujata Visaria and Sujata Visaria

No hs4xj, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Recent work from developed parts of the world has documented a positive association between air pollution and criminal activity. We use high-frequency complaints and air pollution data to estimate air pollution’s causal effects on crime in a developing country. In order to establish causality, we exploit plausibly exogenous local variation in wind direction in an instrumental variable setup. We find that a lower number of complaints are received on the days of high air pollution levels. This effect is more pronounced for property crimes than for violent crimes. Our results are robust to a host of robustness checks and falsification checks. Exploring the potential mechanisms, we find that the decline in criminal activity might result from increased costs of indulging in criminal activity.

Date: 2021-05-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:hs4xj

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/hs4xj

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