IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v107y2025i3p621-638.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Flight from Urban Blight: Lead Poisoning, Crime, and Suburbanization

Author

Listed:
  • Federico Curci

    (CUNEF Universidad)

  • Federico Masera

    (University of New South Wales)

Abstract

In this paper we study the effect of violent crime on residential and firms location decisions and their implications for segregation in cities. We do so by proposing a new instrument to exogenously predict violent crime in city centers. We base our instrument on chemical and medical evidence that links local characteristics of the soil to lead poisoning and aggression. We show that the increase in violent crime between 1960 and 1990 due to lead poisoning moved almost 8 million people to the suburbs. Firms followed by leaving the city centers. We then show that the suburbanization process was characterized by “white flight.”

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Curci & Federico Masera, 2025. "Flight from Urban Blight: Lead Poisoning, Crime, and Suburbanization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 107(3), pages 621-638, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:107:y:2025:i:3:p:621-638
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01323
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_01323?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 search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    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:tpr:restat:v:107:y:2025:i:3:p:621-638. 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: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.