No Country for Exposed Firms: Violent Crime and Business Performance Across Sectors

Danilo Souza ()

No 2026_05, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: Firms are affected by crime either directly, through incidents such as robberies, or indirectly, through reduced foot traffic driven by fear. This paper investigates how firms of different sectors are impacted by the indirect channel. Using a triple-difference specification and data covering the universe of firms in Brazil’s most populous state, I find that the retail sector is relatively more likely to experience na increase in firm entry following a decline in local violent crime rates. Retail firms also exhibit increases in total employment and hiring. To rationalize these findings and explore potential mechanisms, I develop a theoretical model in which sectors are differentially affected by violent crime through its impact on competition and markups.

Keywords: Firms; Violence; Business Performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 K42 L25 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-26
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/DaniloSouza_05WP.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spa:wpaper:2026wpecon5

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pedro Garcia Duarte ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).