Internal Migration and Crime in Brazil

Eva-Maria Egger

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2022, vol. 71, issue 1, 223 - 259

Abstract: Research suggests that the social effects of internal migration may be substantially different from those associated with international immigration. In this paper, I provide the first evidence of the effect of internal migration on crime with panel data from Brazilian microregiões (microregions). Using local labor demand shocks as an instrumental variable, I find that a 10% increase in the in-migration rate translates to a 9.4% increase in the homicide rate in destination areas. I propose that the effect is driven by intermediating labor market effects and not by the migrants themselves. Exploring these possible channels, I do not find that crime-prone migrants drive the results. The effect is only significant in locations with high past crime rates, indicating crime inertia, and in places with a small informal sector, suggesting that the impact of internal migration is conditioned by the ability of local labor markets to accommodate migrants. This finding is supported by a negative effect of in-migration on formal employment in rigid markets and a positive effect on unemployment among young men, with the latter explaining most of the total effect.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/714740 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/714740 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/714740

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Development and Cultural Change from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().