IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crm/wpaper/1428.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Dustmann

    (University College London)

  • Francesco Fasani

    (Queen Mary University)

Abstract

This paper analyses the effect of local crime rates on residents’ mental health. Using longitudinal information on individuals’ mental well-being, we address the problem of sorting and endogenous moving behaviour. We find that crime causes considerable mental distress for residents, mainly driven by property crime. Effects are stronger for females, and mainly related to depression and anxiety. The distress caused by one standard deviation increase in local crime is 2-4 times larger than that caused by a one standard deviation decrease in local employment, and about one seventh of the short-term impact of the 7 July 2005 London Bombings.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Dustmann & Francesco Fasani, 2014. "The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1428, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    • Handle: RePEc:crm:wpaper:1428
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cream-migration.org/publ_uploads/CDP_28_14.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew E. Clark & Yannis Georgellis, 2013. "Back to Baseline in Britain: Adaptation in the British Household Panel Survey," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(319), pages 496-512, July.
    2. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00846456 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Janke, K. & Propper, C. & Shields, M.A., 2013. "Does Violent Crime Deter Physical Activity?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 13/26, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Andrew E. Clark, 2003. "Unemployment as a Social Norm: Psychological Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 289-322, April.
    5. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    6. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    7. Timothy Besley & Hannes Mueller, 2012. "Estimating the Peace Dividend: The Impact of Violence on House Prices in Northern Ireland," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 810-833, April.
    8. Francesca Cornaglia & Naomi E. Feldman & Andrew Leigh, 2014. "Crime and Mental Well-Being," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 110-140.
    9. Giles Atkinson & Andrew Healey & Susana Mourato, 2005. "Valuing the costs of violent crime: a stated preference approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(4), pages 559-585, October.
    10. Richard T. Carson, 2012. "Contingent Valuation: A Practical Alternative When Prices Aren't Available," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 27-42, Fall.
    11. Jerry Hausman, 2012. "Contingent Valuation: From Dubious to Hopeless," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 43-56, Fall.
    12. Gary S. Becker & Yona Rubinstein, 2011. "Fear and the Response to Terrorism: An Economic Analysis," CEP Discussion Papers dp1079, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. Colantone, Italo & Crinò, Rosario & Ogliari, Laura, 2019. "Globalization and mental distress," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 181-207.
    3. Andreia Tolciu, 2010. "The Economics of Social Interactions: An Interdisciplinary Ground for Social Scientists?," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 223-242, January.
    4. Zeynep B. UGUR, 2023. "Do People Adapt to Unemployment? Findings from Türkiye," Istanbul Journal of Economics-Istanbul Iktisat Dergisi, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 73(73-2), pages 781-810, December.
    5. Milena Nikolova & Sinem H. Ayhan, 2019. "Your spouse is fired! How much do you care?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 799-844, July.
    6. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Christian Krekel & George Ward, 2019. "Employee wellbeing, productivity and firm performance," CEP Discussion Papers dp1605, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Tolciu, Andreia, 2008. "Is unemployment a consequence of social interactions? Seeking for a common research framework for economists and other social scientists," HWWI Research Papers 1-15, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    8. Andreia Tolciu, 2010. "The Economics of Social Interactions: An Interdisciplinary Ground for Social Scientists?," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 39(3), pages 223-242, October.
    9. Lepinteur, Anthony, 2019. "The shorter workweek and worker wellbeing: Evidence from Portugal and France," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 204-220.
    10. Susan Harkness, 2016. "The Effect of Employment on the Mental Health of Lone Mothers in the UK Before and After New Labour’s Welfare Reforms," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(2), pages 763-791, September.
    11. van der Meer, Peter H. & Wielers, Rudi, 2016. "Happiness, unemployment and self-esteem," Research Report 16016-HRM&OB, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    12. Panka Bencsik, 2018. "Stress on the Sidewalk: Mental health costs of close proximity crime," 2018 Papers pbe976, Job Market Papers.
    13. Hye Yoon Chung & Youjin Hahn, 2021. "Work Transitions, Gender, and Subjective Well-Being," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(5), pages 2085-2109, October.
    14. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    15. Lídia Farré & Francesco Fasani & Hannes Mueller, 2018. "Feeling useless: the effect of unemployment on mental health in the Great Recession," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, December.
    16. Ivehammar, Pernilla, 2014. "Valuing environmental quality in actual travel time savings – The Haningeleden road project in Stockholm," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 349-356.
    17. Rainer Winkelmann, 2009. "Unemployment, Social Capital, and Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 421-430, August.
    18. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2005. "Unhappiness and Crime: Evidence from South Africa," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(287), pages 531-547, August.
    19. Francesca Cornaglia & Naomi E. Feldman & Andrew Leigh, 2014. "Crime and Mental Well-Being," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 110-140.
    20. Thi Truong An Hoang & Andreas Knabe, 2021. "Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 2525-2548, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    neighbourhoodeffects; mentalwellbeing; fearofcrime;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:crm:wpaper:1428. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: CReAM Administrator or Matthew Nibloe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmucluk.html .

    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.