Birthright Citizenship and Crime

Leander Andres, Stefan Bauernschuster, Gordon Dahl, Helmut Rainer and Schüller, Simone ()
Additional contact information
Leander Andres: Ifo Institute
Helmut Rainer: Ifo Institute
Schüller, Simone: German Youth Institute (DJI)

No 18374, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of birthright citizenship on youth crime. We leverage a reform which automatically granted birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born in Germany after January 1, 2000 and administrative crime data from three federal states. Immigrant youth who acquired citizenship at birth are substantially less likely to engage in criminal activity, with estimates indicating a 70% reduction. These results are particularly relevant in light of ongoing debates in the U.S. about abolishing birthright citizenship. Our findings suggest that inclusive citizenship policies can reduce crime and its associated costs, which in turn could strengthen social cohesion.

Keywords: birthright citizenship; crime; immigration; integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D04 J15 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18374.pdf (application/pdf)

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:iza:izadps:dp18374

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().