Clicking on Heaven’s Door: The Effect of Immigrant Legalization on Crime Article Swipe

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legalization regression discontinuity design heaven immigration residence crime rate demographic economics economics matching (statistics) criminology political science sociology law geography statistics mathematics archaeology

Paolo Pinotti ·

YOU? · · 2016 · Open Access · · DOI: https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20150355 · OA: W3123108177

We estimate the effect of immigrant legalization on the crime rate of immigrants in Italy by exploiting an ideal regression discontinuity design: fixed quotas of residence permits are available each year, applications must be submitted electronically on specific “click days,” and are processed on a first come, first served basis until the available quotas are exhausted. Matching data on applications with individual-level criminal records, we show that legalization reduces the crime rate of legalized immigrants by 0.6 percentage points on average, on a baseline crime rate of 1. percent. (JEL J15, J61, K37, K42)