The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health

Christian Dustmann and Francesco Fasani

No 712, Working Papers from Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance

Abstract: This paper analyses the effect of local crime rates on the mental well-being of residents. Our identification strategy addresses the problem of sorting, and endogenous moving behaviour. We find that crime causes considerable mental distress of residents, and that these effects are mainly driven by property crime. However, individuals react also to violent crime, in particular in areas individuals may be exposed to when following their daily routines, such as travel to work. Local crime creates more distress for females, and is mainly related to depression and anxiety. The impact on mental well-being is large: We find that the increase in mental distress following a one standard deviation increase in local crime is about 2-4 times as large as that caused by a one standard deviation decrease in local employment, and about one seventh of the effect experienced in the direct aftermath of the London Bombings of July 7th, 2005.

Keywords: Neighbourhood effects; Mental wellbeing; Fear of crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 K42 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-12-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sef/media/econ/research/wor ... 2013/items/wp712.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health (2016)
Working Paper: The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health (2014)
Working Paper: The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health (2013)
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:qmw:qmwecw:712

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nicholas Owen ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).