مقاله انگلیسی دیوارهای مرزی و جنایت: شواهدی از قانون حصار امن
Abstract
Introduction
References
Abstract
Despite a lack of rigorous empirical evidence, reduced crime is often touted as a potential beneft in the debate over increasing border infrastructure (i.e., border walls). This paper examines the efect of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which led to unprecedented barrier construction along the US–Mexico border, on local crime using geospatial data on dates and locations of border wall construction. Synthetic control estimates across twelve border counties fnd no systematic evidence that border infrastructure reduced property or violent crime rates in the counties in which it was built. Further analysis using matched panel models indicates no efect on property crime rates and that observed declines in violent crime rates precede barrier construction, not the other way around. Taken together, this paper fnds that potential crime reductions are not a compelling argument toward the benefts of expanding border infrastructure.
Introduction
In the last two decades, the total number of global migrants has increased by nearly 50%, to 258 million (United Nations Population Division 2017). In response to this increase, many countries hosting migrants have focused on increasing border security and regulating migration. In the USA, home to around 50 million migrants, increased border security was a key focus of the Trump administration.1 Between 2004 and 2017, the US Customs and Border Patrol’s enacted budget increased from $6.0 to $14.3 billion, a 138% increase (US Department of Homeland Security 2019). Since the passage of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, a key element of eforts to increase border enforcement has been the construction of a wall along the US–Mexico border.2 While the costs of such infrastructure investments are known (and economically signifcant), the benefts of border wall expansion are difcult to quantify. Proposed benefts by proponents of border wall expansion can be classifed in terms of labor market efects (wage and employment efects on native populations from reduced migration), public expenditure efects (changes in public program spending from changes in migrant fows), and efects on crime and safety. Allen et al. (2019) estimate that expansion of border walls along the US–Mexico border between 2007 and 2010 harmed both Mexican workers and US high-skill workers. US low-skill workers had welfare gains equivalent to a $0.28 increase in per capita income, far below the $7 per capita cost of border wall construction that they estimate.