Mountains of Evidence: The Effects of Abnormal Air Pollution on Crime

David De Remer; Birzhan Batkeyev

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.009

Mountains of Evidence: The Effects of Abnormal Air Pollution on Crime

David De Remer
, Birzhan Batkeyev

Graduate School of Business

Kazakh-British Technical University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We find that air pollution increases crime in a city that ranks in the worst two percentiles worldwide for dirty winter air. Our identification strategy employs distinct geographic features of Almaty, Kazakhstan: cleaner mountain winds and frequent temperature inversions. Using these variables to instrument for PM2.5 air pollution, we estimate a PM2.5 elasticity of the expected crime rate more than four times as large as similar estimates from cleaner cities. Among crime types, we estimate statistically significant effects of air pollution on property crime, and we find no evidence of an effect on violent crime. These results are consistent with theory that air pollution induces higher discounting rather than aggression. We extend this theory and find that whether air pollution has distinct effects on crimes of varying severity depends on whether the population is more heterogenous in the outside option or in the discount factor. Using microdata on crime severity, we find statistically significant increases in both major and minor crime rates from air pollution, and we fail to reject common PM2.5 elasticities of minor and major crime rates. The greater scale of major crimes implies that they contribute more to the total crime rate increase from air pollution.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	288-319
Number of pages	32
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume	210
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.009
Publication status	Published - Jun 2023

Funding

We thank Gani Aldashev, Aiymgul Kerimray, Jozef Konings, Leslie Marx, David McAdams, Ryan McDevitt, Sefi Roth, and Zhenxuan Wang for helpful discussion and feedback, as well as conference participants at the AERE 2022 Summer Conference and seminar participants at Duke University, Nazarbayev University, and Kazakh-British Technical University. We are grateful to two anonymous referees for their comments. We thank Amina Abilkassym, Kamola Ismoilova, Rustam Merekenov, Anel Makhsut, and Arailym Tay for sharing data and insights. Any errors are the responsibility of the authors. Funding from the Nazarbayev University Social Policy Grant is gratefully acknowledged. ☆ We thank Gani Aldashev, Aiymgul Kerimray, Jozef Konings, Leslie Marx, David McAdams, Ryan McDevitt, Sefi Roth, and Zhenxuan Wang for helpful discussion and feedback, as well as conference participants at the AERE 2022 Summer Conference and seminar participants at Duke University, Nazarbayev University, and Kazakh-British Technical University. We are grateful to two anonymous referees for their comments. We thank Amina Abilkassym, Kamola Ismoilova, Rustam Merekenov, Anel Makhsut, and Arailym Tay for sharing data and insights. Any errors are the responsibility of the authors. Funding from the Nazarbayev University Social Policy Grant is gratefully acknowledged.

Funders
Amina Abilkassym
Kazakh-British Technical University
Nazarbayev University

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

Air Pollution
PM2.5
Crime
Cognitive distortions
Air pollution

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.009

https://drderemer.github.io/papers/abnormal-air-pollution-crime.pdfLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Mountains of Evidence: The Effects of Abnormal Air Pollution on Crime",

abstract = "We find that air pollution increases crime in a city that ranks in the worst two percentiles worldwide for dirty winter air. Our identification strategy employs distinct geographic features of Almaty, Kazakhstan: cleaner mountain winds and frequent temperature inversions. Using these variables to instrument for PM2.5 air pollution, we estimate a PM2.5 elasticity of the expected crime rate more than four times as large as similar estimates from cleaner cities. Among crime types, we estimate statistically significant effects of air pollution on property crime, and we find no evidence of an effect on violent crime. These results are consistent with theory that air pollution induces higher discounting rather than aggression. We extend this theory and find that whether air pollution has distinct effects on crimes of varying severity depends on whether the population is more heterogenous in the outside option or in the discount factor. Using microdata on crime severity, we find statistically significant increases in both major and minor crime rates from air pollution, and we fail to reject common PM2.5 elasticities of minor and major crime rates. The greater scale of major crimes implies that they contribute more to the total crime rate increase from air pollution.",

keywords = "Air Pollution, PM2.5, Crime, Cognitive distortions, Air pollution",

author = "\{De Remer\}, David and Birzhan Batkeyev",

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year = "2023",

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N2 - We find that air pollution increases crime in a city that ranks in the worst two percentiles worldwide for dirty winter air. Our identification strategy employs distinct geographic features of Almaty, Kazakhstan: cleaner mountain winds and frequent temperature inversions. Using these variables to instrument for PM2.5 air pollution, we estimate a PM2.5 elasticity of the expected crime rate more than four times as large as similar estimates from cleaner cities. Among crime types, we estimate statistically significant effects of air pollution on property crime, and we find no evidence of an effect on violent crime. These results are consistent with theory that air pollution induces higher discounting rather than aggression. We extend this theory and find that whether air pollution has distinct effects on crimes of varying severity depends on whether the population is more heterogenous in the outside option or in the discount factor. Using microdata on crime severity, we find statistically significant increases in both major and minor crime rates from air pollution, and we fail to reject common PM2.5 elasticities of minor and major crime rates. The greater scale of major crimes implies that they contribute more to the total crime rate increase from air pollution.

AB - We find that air pollution increases crime in a city that ranks in the worst two percentiles worldwide for dirty winter air. Our identification strategy employs distinct geographic features of Almaty, Kazakhstan: cleaner mountain winds and frequent temperature inversions. Using these variables to instrument for PM2.5 air pollution, we estimate a PM2.5 elasticity of the expected crime rate more than four times as large as similar estimates from cleaner cities. Among crime types, we estimate statistically significant effects of air pollution on property crime, and we find no evidence of an effect on violent crime. These results are consistent with theory that air pollution induces higher discounting rather than aggression. We extend this theory and find that whether air pollution has distinct effects on crimes of varying severity depends on whether the population is more heterogenous in the outside option or in the discount factor. Using microdata on crime severity, we find statistically significant increases in both major and minor crime rates from air pollution, and we fail to reject common PM2.5 elasticities of minor and major crime rates. The greater scale of major crimes implies that they contribute more to the total crime rate increase from air pollution.

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KW - Cognitive distortions

KW - Air pollution

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ER -

Mountains of Evidence: The Effects of Abnormal Air Pollution on Crime

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this