The Effect of Police on Crime: Evidence from the 2014 World Cup in Sao Paulo

Ilaria Masiero ()

Economía Journal, 2021, vol. Volume 21, Number 1, issue Fall 2020, 46-72

Abstract: I estimate the causal impact of police on crime, based on evidence from Brazil. To tackle reverse causality, I consider as a natural experiment the creation of a special police unit to intensify surveillance around a few tournament-related locations in Sao Paulo during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. To better isolate the specific impact of policing, I account for different ways in which the tournament may affect crime, namely, via fan concentration and voluntary incapacitation. Difference-in-differences estimates reveal that increased police presence leads to significant reductions in criminal activity. My estimate of the crime-police elasticity (−0.37) is close to figures obtained in previous studies, suggesting that this effect is robust across settings and remains stable even in a high-crime, weak-institutions context, as in the case of Brazil.

Keywords: Police; crime; Brazil; natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000425:019764

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