Legal Status and the Criminal Activity of Immigrants

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mastrobuoni, Giovanni; Pinotti, Paolo
• 署名单位: Collegio Carlo Alberto; University of Essex; Bocconi University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20140039
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 175-206
• 关键词: labor-market; UNITED-STATES; crime; IMPACT; wages; estimators; regression; workers; prices; POLICY

摘要

We exploit exogenous variation in legal status following the January 2007 European Union enlargement to estimate its effect on immigrant crime. We difference out unobserved time-varying factors by (i) comparing recidivism rates of immigrants from the new and candidate member countries; and (ii) using arrest data on foreign detainees released upon a mass clemency that occurred in Italy in August 2006. The timing of the two events allows us to setup a difference-in-differences strategy. Legal status leads to a 50 percent reduction in recidivism, and explains one-half to two-thirds of the observed differences in crime rates between legal and illegal immigrants.