Ending Rent Control Reduced Crime in Cambridge

Using detailed location-specific criminal incident-level data, we find that sudden rent decontrol in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1995 caused overall crime to fall by 16 percent--approximately 1,200 crimes annually. We estimate that this annual direct benefit to Cambridge residents was roughly $10 mi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Autor, David H, Palmer, Christopher John, Pathak, Parag
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Economic Association 2020
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128852
Description
Summary:Using detailed location-specific criminal incident-level data, we find that sudden rent decontrol in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1995 caused overall crime to fall by 16 percent--approximately 1,200 crimes annually. We estimate that this annual direct benefit to Cambridge residents was roughly $10 million (in 2008 dollars), accounting for 10 percent of the growth in the Cambridge residential property values attributable to decontrol.