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The Urban Crime and Heat Gradient in High and Low Poverty Areas

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  • Kilian Heilmann
  • Matthew E. Kahn

Abstract

We use spatially disaggregated daily crime data for the City of Los Angeles to measure the impact of heat and pollution on crime and to study how this relationship varies across the city. On average, overall crime increases by 2.2% and violent crime by 5.7% on days with maximum daily temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4° C) compared to days below that threshold. The heat-crime relationship is more pronounced in low-income neighborhoods. This suggests that heat shocks can increase spatial urban quality of life differences through their effect on crime. We use other administrative data and find some evidence that policing intensity declines on extremely hot days. These findings highlight that the quality of urban governance during times of extreme stress may be an important policy lever in helping all socio-economic groups adapt to climate change.

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  • Kilian Heilmann & Matthew E. Kahn, 2019. "The Urban Crime and Heat Gradient in High and Low Poverty Areas," NBER Working Papers 25961, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25961
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. JHU's 21st Century Cities Initiative
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2019-07-26 13:55:00
    2. How Does Applied Microeconomic Research Accelerate Climate Change Adaptation?
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2021-05-13 14:39:00

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    3. Nelly Exbrayat & Victor Stephane, 2024. "Does Urbanization Cause Crime? Evidence from Rural-Urban Migration in South Africa," Working Papers 2401, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    4. Jonathan Colmer & Jennifer L. Doleac, 2023. "Access to Guns in the Heat of the Moment: More Restrictive Gun Laws Mitigate the Effect of Temperature on Violence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10525, CESifo.
    5. Pierre Magontier, Maximilian v. Ehrlich, Markus Schl pfer, 2022. "The Fragility of Urban Social Networks - Mobility as a City Glue -," Diskussionsschriften credresearchpaper38, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft - CRED.
    6. Vu Thuy Huong Le & Jesse D. Berman & Quynh Anh Tran & Elizabeth V. Wattenberg & Bruce H. Alexander, 2022. "The Effects of Daily Temperature on Crime Events in Urban Hanoi, Vietnam Using Seven Years of Data (2013–2019)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-11, October.
    7. Brüderle, Mirjam Anna & Peters, Jörg & Roberts, Gareth, 2022. "Weather and crime: Cautious evidence from South Africa," Ruhr Economic Papers 940, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    8. Behrer,Arnold Patrick & Bolotnyy,Valentin, 2022. "Heat, Crime, and Punishment," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9909, The World Bank.
    9. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Russell Smyth & Trong‐Anh Trinh, 2023. "Crime, Weather and Climate Change in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(324), pages 84-107, March.
    10. Lohmann, Paul M. & Gsottbauer, Elisabeth & You, Jing & Kontoleon, Andreas, 2023. "Air pollution and anti-social behaviour: Evidence from a randomised lab-in-the-field experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    11. Hener, Timo, 2022. "Noise pollution and violent crime☆," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    12. Garg, Teevrat & McCord, Gordon C. & Montfort, Aleister, 2020. "Can Social Protection Reduce Environmental Damages?," IZA Discussion Papers 13247, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Giorgio Gulino & Federico Masera, 2023. "Contagious Dishonesty: Corruption Scandals and Supermarket Theft," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 218-251, October.
    14. Nadezhda Baryshnikova & Shannon Davidson & Dennis Wesselbaum, 2022. "Do you feel the heat around the corner? The effect of weather on crime," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 179-199, July.
    15. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2022. "Local area crime and energy poverty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    16. Rogério Pereira & Tatiane Almeida de Menezes, 2021. "Does per capita income cause homicide rates? An application of an IV spatial model," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 1388-1400, August.
    17. Gunadi, Christian, 2019. "The legacy of slavery on hate crime in the United States," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(4), pages 339-344.
    18. Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Visaria, Sujata, 2021. "Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India," SocArXiv hs4xj, Center for Open Science.
    19. Stadelmann, David & Thomas, Tobias & Zakharov, Nikita, 2023. "Too hot to play it cool? Temperature and media bias," DICE Discussion Papers 408, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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