The Korean Journal of Economic Studies
The Effect of Immigration on Crime: Evidence from Metropolitan Regions in South Korea
Dowon Kim (Migration Research & Training Centre) and Jaewook Byeon (Sungkyunkwan University)Year 2021Vol. 69No. 4
Abstract
There has been a significant increase in global migration in recent decades. Contrary to popular perceptions, in the existing literature the evidence on therelationship between immigration and crime is controversial. Using data from South Korean 13 metropolitan areas, from 2010 to 2019, this paper investigatesthe relationship between immigration and crime. We use fixed effects model to account for metropolitan regions unobserved heterogeneity, and also estimatethe 2SLS fixed effects model to address the potential endogeneity problem associated with the endogenous sorting behavior of immigrants. We focus ontypes of immigration, in particular un-naturalized foreigners, then we find that foreign students has a robust effect on the level of violent and property crimes.