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  3. American Economic Review
  4. January 2017
  5. Clicking on Heaven's Door: The Effect of Immigrant Legalization on Crime

Clicking on Heaven's Door: The Effect of Immigrant Legalization on Crime

  • Paolo Pinotti
American Economic Review
vol. 107, no. 1, January 2017
(pp. 138-68)
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Abstract

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 1.1 percent.

Citation

Pinotti, Paolo. 2017. "Clicking on Heaven's Door: The Effect of Immigrant Legalization on Crime." American Economic Review, 107 (1): 138-68. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150355

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
  • J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
  • K37 Immigration Law
  • K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law