Do immigrants cause crime?

Milo Bianchi, Paolo Buonanno and Paolo Pinotti

PSE Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: In this paper we examine the empirical relationship between immigration and crime across Italian provinces during the period 1990-2003. Drawing on police administrative data, we first document that the size of immigrant population is positively correlated with the incidence of property crimes and with the overall crime rate. Then, we use instrumental variables based on migration toward other European countries to identify the causal impact of exogenous changes of immigrant population in Italy. According to these estimates, immigration increases only the incidence of robberies, while leaving unaffected all other types of crime. Since robberies represent a very minor fraction of all criminal offenses, the effect on the overall crime rate is not significantly different from zero.

Keywords: immigration; crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-11
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00586864v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Journal Article: DO IMMIGRANTS CAUSE CRIME? (2012)
Working Paper: Do Immigrants Cause Crime? (2012)
Working Paper: Do Immigrants Cause Crime? (2012)
Working Paper: Do Immigrants Cause Crime? (2010)
Working Paper: Do Immigrants Cause Crime? (2008)
Working Paper: Do immigrants cause crime? (2008)
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