IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v149y2025ics009411902500052x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does urbanization cause crime? Evidence from rural–urban migration in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Exbrayat, Nelly
  • Stephane, Victor

Abstract

We study the impact of urbanization driven by internal migration on crime in South Africa. We create a new dataset that combines yearly data on crime and urban population density at the municipality level from 2011 to 2018. We exploit exogenous variations in rural–urban migration induced by climate shocks at origin for identification. We show that higher urban population density leads to a reduction in pecuniary crime rate but has no effect on non-pecuniary crime rate. This negative effect operates through changes in population composition and a social network effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Exbrayat, Nelly & Stephane, Victor, 2025. "Does urbanization cause crime? Evidence from rural–urban migration in South Africa," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:149:y:2025:i:c:s009411902500052x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2025.103787
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009411902500052X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jue.2025.103787?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:149:y:2025:i:c:s009411902500052x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.