Immigration Enforcement and Crime

Paolo Pinotti

American Economic Review, 2015, vol. 105, issue 5, 205-09

Abstract: Immigration enforcement has ambiguous implications for the crime rate of undocumented immigrants. On the one hand, expulsions reduce the pool of immigrants at risk of committing crimes, on the other they lower the opportunity cost of crime for those who are not expelled. We estimate the effect of expulsions on the crime rate of undocumented immigrants in Italy exploiting variation in enforcement toward immigrants of different nationality, due to the existence of bilateral agreements for the control of illegal migration. We find that stricter enforcement of migration policy reduces the crime rate of undocumented immigrants.

JEL-codes: J15 J18 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151040
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.p20151040 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/10505/P2015_1040_ds.zip (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/10505/P2015_1040_data.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Immigration enforcement and crime (2015)
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:aea:aecrev:v:105:y:2015:i:5:p:205-09

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().