Search Results

Source: John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research, Harvard University
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Butcher, Kristin F.
Piehl, Anne Morrison
Cross-City Evidence on the Relationship Between Immigration and Crime
Faculty Research Working Paper Series No. R94-26, John F. Kennedy School of Government, HarvardUniversity, September 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: John F. Kennedy School of Government
Keyword(s): Crime; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Economics, Demographic; Economics, Regional; Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Ethnic Studies; Illegal Activities; Immigrants; Modeling; Urbanization/Urban Living

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Public concerns about the costs of immigration and crime are high, and sometimes overlapping. This paper investigates the relationship between immigration into a metropolitan area and that area's crime rate over the 1980's. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the Current Population Surveys, we find, in the cross- section, that cities with high crime rates tend to have large numbers of immigrants. However, controlling for the demographic (racial and ethnic) characteristics of the cities, recent immigrants appear to have no effect on crime rates. Stated differently, crime rates have large city-specific components. When we try to explain changes in the crime rate in a city over time, recent immigration again has no effect. In a secondary analysis of individual data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we find that youth born abroad are statistically significantly less likely to be criminally active, based on a variety of measures. This record is part of the Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics (AWPE) Database, copyright (c) 1995 Cambridge University Press.
Bibliography Citation
Butcher, Kristin F. and Anne Morrison Piehl. "Cross-City Evidence on the Relationship Between Immigration and Crime." Faculty Research Working Paper Series No. R94-26, John F. Kennedy School of Government, HarvardUniversity, September 1994.