Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Shared Legacies, Disparate Outcomes: Why American South Border Cities Turned the Tables on Crime and Their Mexican Sisters Did Not

Contents:

Author Info

  • Pedro H. Albuquerque

    (Texas A&M International University)

Abstract

The article evaluates crime trends in south border American and Mexican sister cities using panel data analysis. The region offers a unique assessment opportunity since cities are characterized by shared cultural and historical legacies, institutional heterogeneity, and disparate crime outcomes. Higher homicide rates on the Mexican side seem to result from deficient law enforcement. Higher population densities in Mexican cities appear to also be a factor. Cultural differences, on the other hand, have been decreasing, and apparently do not play a substantial role. The homicide rate dynamics show opportunistic clustering of criminal activity in Mexican cities, while no clustering is found on the American side. Crime also appears to spill from Mexican cities into American cities. Homicide rates on both sides of the border have been falling faster than countrywide rates, leading, in the case of American cities, and against stereotypes, to rates below the countrywide rate in 2001.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://128.118.178.162/eps/le/papers/0511/0511002.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Law and Economics with number 0511002.

as in new window
Length: 45 pages
Date of creation: 22 Nov 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0511002

Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 45
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://128.118.178.162

Related research

Keywords: Crime; Border; Law Enforcement; Justice; Immigration; Mexico;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Morgan Kelly, 2000. "Inequality And Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 530-539, November.
  2. Dezhbakhsh, Hashem & Rubin, Paul H, 1998. "Lives Saved or Lives Lost? The Effects of Concealed-Handgun Laws on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 468-74, May.
  3. Maurice Kugler & Thierry Verdier & Yves Zenou, 2003. "Organized Crime, Corruption and Punishment," DELTA Working Papers 2003-34, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  4. Ramos, José María, 2003. "Managing Transborder Cooperation on Public Security: The Tijuana-San Diego Region," University of California at San Diego, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies qt6d13m8rc, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego.
  5. Becker, Gary S, 1993. "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 385-409, June.
  6. Kelly, Morgan, 2000. "Inequality and crime," Open Access publications from University College Dublin urn:hdl:10197/523, University College Dublin.
  7. Reames, Benjamin, 2003. "Police Forces in Mexico: A Profile," University of California at San Diego, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies qt1sq4g254, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego.
  8. Steven D. Levitt, 1995. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Policeon Crime," NBER Working Papers 4991, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Roberto Coronado & Pia M. Orrenius, 2003. "The impact of illegal immigration and enforcement on border crime rates," Working Papers 03-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
  10. Lott, John R, Jr & Mustard, David B, 1997. "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-68, January.
  11. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Lederman, Daniel & Loayza, Norman, 2002. "Inequality and Violent Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(1), pages 1-40, April.
  12. Miron, Jeffrey A, 2001. "Violence, Guns, and Drugs: A Cross-Country Analysis," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 615-33, October.
  13. Bronars, Stephen G & Lott, John R, Jr, 1998. "Criminal Deterrence, Geographic Spillovers, and the Right to Carry Concealed Handguns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 475-79, May.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0511002

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (EconWPA).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.