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Do refugees cause crime?

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  • Kayaoglu, Aysegul

Abstract

The impact of immigration on crime continues to stir heated debates in public policy circles around the world. Surveys indicate that host societies favor controversial measures because they are concerned about what they perceive to be an impingement exacted on their security with each new wave of migration. Seeking whether there is any truth to such perceptions, this paper analyzes the refugees’ impact on crime rates, using the case of Turkey which has started to host the world’s largest refugee population within any national borders due to the Syrian civil war. In doing so, the paper employs instrumental variables, difference-in-differences (DiD), and staggered DiD methods to explain if the conflict-fleeing Syrians have pushed Turkey’s crime rates higher in the short and the long run. It also controls for a multitude of time-varying provincial characteristics and presents a battery of robustness checks against various identification threats. As a result, DiD estimates show that refugees do not have any causal effect on the crime rates in Turkey. More strikingly, its IV estimates provide evidence for a rather negative effect on the crime rates per capita whilst finding a null effect on the crime rates per native resident in particular.

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  • Kayaoglu, Aysegul, 2022. "Do refugees cause crime?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:154:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x22000481
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105858
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    Cited by:

    1. Aysegül Kayaoglu & Ghassan Baliki & Tilman Brück & Melodie Al Daccache & Dorothee Weiffen, 2023. "How to conduct impact evaluations in humanitarian and conflict settings," HiCN Working Papers 387, Households in Conflict Network.
    2. Lange, Martin & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2024. "Do refugees impact crime? Causal evidence from large-scale refugee immigration to Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Ahmad AlShwawra, 2021. "Syrian Refugees’ Integration Policies in Jordanian Labor Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-16, June.
    4. Ben Atta, Oussama & Chort, Isabelle & Senne, Jean Noël, 2022. "Immigration, integration, and the informal economy in OECD countries," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1197, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Michael Christian Lehmann, 2023. "Macroeconomic volatility and anti‐refugee violence in developing countries: Evidence from commodity price shocks," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 992-1012, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crime; Refugees; Syrians; Misperceptions; Turkey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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