Does increased access to home mortgage money reduce local crime rates? Evidence from San Diego County

W.C. Bunting

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2020, vol. 84, issue C

Abstract: This study provides estimates of the impact of increased access to home mortgage credit on local crime rates and uses national home mortgage loan origination volume as an instrument for local home mortgage loan origination volume. The focus of the study is San Diego County from 2007-Q1 to 2013-Q1. The regression estimates indicate that increased access to home mortgage loans during this time period had a statistically significant negative impact on local crime rates: the baseline specification suggests that a ten percentage point increase in the growth in home mortgage loan originations decreases the growth in total crime incidents by approximately 2.75 percentage points. This finding is robust to different model specifications.

Keywords: Neighborhood crime; Mortgage lending; Community capital investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 K14 R30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:84:y:2020:i:c:s0166046220302556

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103570

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