The refugee wave to Germany and its impact on crime

Fabian T. Dehos

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2021, vol. 88, issue C

Abstract: Does migration cause crime? Drawing on recent migratory flows to Germany, I address this question by distinguishing two types of migrants: asylum seekers and recognized refugees. Using German administrative panel data from 2010 to 2015, I add to the literature by disentangling the direct crime impact of both groups from indirect crime responses by other citizens. For asylum seekers, I exploit dispersal policies and locational restrictions and find no causal impact on crime except for migration-specific offenses. For recognized refugees, who may endogenously move, I apply a shift-share instrument and find a positive association between the share of recognized refugees and the overall crime rate, which is driven by non-violent property crimes and frauds. The empirical results are robust to several robustness checks and prove consistent with theoretical expectations.

Keywords: Refugee migration; Crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J15 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:88:y:2021:i:c:s0166046220303252

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103640

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