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Does Violent Crime Deter Physical Activity?

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  • Propper, Carol
  • Shields, Michael
  • Janke, Katharina

Abstract

Crime has been argued to have important externalities. We investigate the relationship between violent crime and an important type of behaviour: individuals? participation in their local area through walking and physical activity. We use a sample of nearly 1 million people residing in over 320 small areas in England between 2005 and 2011. We show that concerns about personal safety co-move with police recorded violent crime. To identify the causal effect of recorded violent crime on walking and other physical activity we control for individual-level characteristics, non-time varying local authority effects, national time effects and local authority-specific trends. In addition, we exploit a natural experiment that caused a sudden increase in crime ? the 2011 England riots ? to identify the causal impact of a large exogenous crime shock on physical activity in a triple difference framework. Our results show a substantive deterrent effect of local area violent crime on walking, pointing to important effects of violent crime on non-victims. The adverse effect of an increase in local area violent crime from the 25th to the 75th percentile on walking is equivalent in size to a 6 C fall in average minimum temperature.

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  • Propper, Carol & Shields, Michael & Janke, Katharina, 2013. "Does Violent Crime Deter Physical Activity?," CEPR Discussion Papers 9605, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9605
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    Cited by:

    1. Cabane Charlotte & Lechner Michael, 2015. "Physical Activity of Adults: A Survey of Correlates, Determinants, and Effects," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(4-5), pages 376-402, August.
    2. Christian Dustmann & Francesco Fasani, 2016. "The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 978-1017, June.
    3. David W. Johnston & Michael A. Shields & Agne Suziedelyte, 2018. "Victimisation, Well†being and Compensation: Using Panel Data to Estimate the Costs of Violent Crime," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1545-1569, June.
    4. Panka Bencsik, 2018. "Stress on the Sidewalk: Mental health costs of close proximity crime," 2018 Papers pbe976, Job Market Papers.
    5. Dyer, Julian, 2023. "The fruits (and vegetables) of crime: Protection from theft and agricultural development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Violent crime; Walking; Physical activity; Riots;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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