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Immigration, socio-economic conditions and crime: a cross-sectional versus cross-sectional time-series perspective

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Abstract

This study purpose is to verify if there is an association between foreign immigration and crime. In doing this, the study investigates also some satellite aspects revolving around this possible association: the range of offences affected by immigration, the relationship between immigrant and native crime, and whether the immigration impact on crime is direct or indirect. The present study has addressed these issues by both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal analysis, the latter including an instrument. The study is based on data of the Italian provinces. Italy represents a critical case for studying the migration–crime relationship, because in this country the rise in foreign immigration has been sudden and its pace feverish. The cross-sectional analysis findings show that crime intensities are affected by time-invariant factors and marginally by immigration. On the contrary, the longitudinal analysis shows that variations in immigration had a positive impact on both the most serious and the most common offences, on property crimes as well as on crimes of violence. There is no evidence of indirect effects of immigration on crime or of a link with native crime. In contrast to previous literature regarding the U.S., Canada, and Australia, these results suggest that a spiralling immigration can affect crime. In terms of methods, these findings show that the standard synchronic analysis models can be biased by non-observed factors and that therefore cross-sectional time-series models can offer significant advantages.

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Notes

  1. The countries of origin of these immigrant groups are Morocco, Albania, Romania, Senegal, former Yugoslavia and Tunisia.

  2. Employing an instrumental variable, only that portion of the variations of X which can be explained by the instrument is used to infer about beta.

  3. This test performs an OLS, FE regression of the original Y on the original X, augmented by the residuals obtained from the first-stage regression of X on the instrument, and followed by an F test for the hypothesis that the coefficient of the residuals is zero. Alternatively, regressing Y on X and the instrument, an F test on the instrument coefficient would produce the same results.

  4. These magazines are Panorama, L’Espresso and Il Mondo.

  5. The Hausman’s test was used for the significance of the estimators and the presence of time-invariant omitted variables. Possible correlations of the residuals between one wave and the next were checked by means of the Pesaran’s and Frees’ tests. These residuals do not represent a serious problem when the research units are numerous and the waves only a few. For the pooled data correlations and the FD regressions, we used macro-region dummies, substantially equivalent to the FE area-trend controls.

  6. The Chow’s test confirmed that the time dummies are jointly significant for the rates of most offences.

  7. Elasticity was calculated as average value of dy/dx * (x/y).

  8. In this analysis, we used ∆2 (dep. var.) t + 3 in lieu of ∆3 (dep. var.) t + 3, because otherwise the baseline values of the dependent variable would be on both sides of the equation, inflating the errors.

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  1. Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale A. Moro, 5, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Luigi M. Solivetti

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Solivetti, L.M. Immigration, socio-economic conditions and crime: a cross-sectional versus cross-sectional time-series perspective. Qual Quant 52, 1779–1805 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0566-8

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