Haze and Crime: Evidence from Court Judgments in China

Abstract

Utilizing 1.5 million court judgment files in China during 2015–2018, we investigate the causal relationship between short-term air pollution exposure and crime rates. Using thermal inversion as the instrument for air pollution, we find that a 10 µg/m3 increase in daily PM2.5 leads to a 1.583% increase in the daily crime rate of intentional injury, whereas air pollution has no statistically significant effect on the crime rates of dangerous driving, theft, and robbery. Using detailed characteristics at the case and criminal level, we show that perpetrators in these pollution-induced crimes are more likely to be repeat offenders, non-accomplices, unarmed offenders, and cases involving voluntarily surrender are more affected. In addition, we find that the salience of pollution plays an important role in shaping criminals’ moods to commit crimes. Our results have implications for measuring the social costs of pollution and designing crime reduction policies.

Keywords: crime, air pollution, salience, moods

JEL Classification: K42, Q53, H23