Achievement

One of our IGERT trainees (Aaron Chalfin) has written a very interesting paper analyzing the effects of immigration from Mexico to the United States on urban crime rates. The paper exploits the fact the insufficient rainfall in rural Mexico often generated excessive immigration into specific American cities, generating quasi-experimental variation in the size of the Mexican foreign-born population. The study finds significant negative effects of Mexican migration on rape/sexual assault and a small significant positive effect on auto theft.