Research

How can crime be disrupted most effectively without increasing resources? To answer this question, we develop a spatial network model to analyze crime diffusion, using London as a case study. Moving beyond traditional hot spot policing, we identify key player neighbourhoods — highly connected areas in the network. Our analysis reveals that while hot spots mainly attract crime locally, key player neighbourhoods predominantly propagate it. Simulations show that targeting the top 10% of key players reduces crime by 10.7% (5.8 percentage points) more than hot spot strategies. This approach offers a cost-effective solution, with potential annual savings exceeding £130 million.

This paper investigates the causal pathways through which ethnic social networks influence individual naturalization. Using the complete-count Census of 1930, we digitize information on the exact residence of newly arrived immigrants in New York City. This allows us to define networks with a granularity detail that was not used before for historical data — the Census block — and therefore to overcome issues of spatial sorting. By matching individual observations with the complete-count Census of 1940, we estimate the impact that the exogenous fraction of naturalized co-ethnics in the network observed in 1930 has on the probability of immigrants to acquire citizenship a decade later.

The UK Welfare Reform Act 2012 imposed a series of welfare cuts, which disproportionately impacted ex-ante poorer areas. In this paper, we consider the impact of these austerity measures on two different but complementary elements of crime — the crime rate and the less-studied concentration of crime — over the period 2011–2015 in England and Wales. Areas more exposed to the welfare reforms experience increased levels of crime, an effect driven by a rise in violent crime. Both violent and property crime become more concentrated within an area. It is ex-ante more deprived neighbourhoods that bear the brunt of the crime increases.

We investigate whether COVID-19 deaths that occurred before vaccination rollouts impact subsequent vaccination take-up. Using data on local vaccination rates and COVID-19-related deaths from England, we find that vaccination take-up as of November 2021 is positively associated with pre-vaccine COVID-19-related deaths. The share of ethnic minorities in a locality is negatively associated with vaccination rates, but localities with a larger share of ethnic minorities increase their vaccination rates if exposed to more COVID-related deaths. Overall, our evidence suggests that social proximity to victims of the disease triggers a desire to take protective action.

Understanding the formation of trust is a key issue, considering its impact on economic performance. We introduce the distinction between permanent trust and transient trust and argue that it is only permanent trust that is relevant for the intergenerational transmission process. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we show that 2/3 of the observed variability of children's trust is due to the transient component. The remaining variability due to the permanent component is only moderately determined by the permanent trust of the parents, with mothers being much more relevant than fathers.

By combining data on terror news and individual political preferences, this paper finds that headlines about ISIS and terrorism in the context of the Syrian crisis increased the support for right-wing populism in England for the period 2013 to 2019.

This study investigates whether exposure to peer depression in adolescence affects own depression in adulthood. We find a significant long-term depression peer effect for females but not for males. An increase of one standard deviation of the share of own-gender peers who are depressed increases the probability of depression in adulthood by 2.6 percentage points for females. We show that peer depression negatively affects the probability of college attendance and the likelihood of working, and leads to a reduction in income of adult females.

This paper is the first to study the causal impact of Brexit on the post-graduation mobility decisions of EU students in the UK. We exploit the British government's formal withdrawal notification under Article 50 as a natural experiment and employ a difference-in-differences design. We find that EU graduating students are significantly more likely than non-EU graduating students to plan on leaving the UK upon graduation immediately after the announcement.

This paper provides evidence that daily fluctuations in the stock market have important — and hitherto neglected — spillover effects on fatal car accidents. Using the universe of fatal car accidents in the United States from 1990 to 2015, we find that a one standard deviation reduction in daily stock market returns is associated with a 0.6% increase in fatal car accidents that happen after the stock market opening. Our results are consistent with immediate emotions stirred by a negative stock market performance influencing the number of fatal accidents, in particular among inexperienced investors.

We carry out an email correspondence study in which we pose simple queries to more than 19,000 local public service providers. We find that emails from putatively black senders are almost 4 percentage points less likely to receive an answer compared to emails signed with a white-sounding name. Responses to queries coming from black names are less likely to have a cordial tone. Further tests suggest that the differential is due to animus towards blacks rather than statistical discrimination. We show that attitudes towards the government among blacks are more negative in states with higher discrimination.

This paper studies the role of strong versus weak ties in the rural-to-urban migration decision in China. We develop a network model and test it using unique longitudinal data. Our results indicate that both weak and strong ties matter in the migration decision process, although the impact of weak ties is higher than that of strong ties. We also show that one underestimates the effect of social networks on migration by not taking into account the strong ties in the mobility process.

We provide the first evidence of the magnitude and consequences of the Americanization of migrants' names in the early twentieth century. We construct a longitudinal data set of naturalization records, tracking migrants and their naming choices over time. We consistently find that migrants who Americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading. Name Americanization embodies an intention to assimilate among low-skilled migrants and reveals the existence of preferences for American names within the labor market.

This paper investigates how ethnic diversity, measured by immigrants' nationalities, influences the well-being of the host country. Using panel data from Germany from 1998 to 2012, we find a positive effect of ethnic diversity on the well-being of German natives. The positive effect is stronger for immigrant groups that are culturally and economically closer to Germany. We document two mechanisms: productivity and social capital.

The paper investigates the impact of remittances on the relative concerns of households in rural China. Using the RUMiC dataset we find evidence of a "status effect" with respect to income and of a "signal effect" of similar magnitude with respect to remittances. Rural households experience substantial welfare loss due to income comparisons, but gain well-being by comparing their remittances with those received by their reference group.

This chapter reviews and discusses major theories and empirical studies about the welfare magnet hypothesis. Although economic theory predicts that welfare generosity affects the number, composition and location of immigrants, the empirical evidence is rather mixed. We offer possible explanations for the existence of such mixed evidence and highlight that the literature so far has overlooked the presence of different migration regimes, as well as the possibility of reverse causality between welfare spending and immigration.

In this chapter, we explore the age and ethnic structures of interregional migration in England, as measured by the 1991 and 2001 Censuses. We analyse the main effect and two-way interaction components of migration flow tables cross-classified by origin, destination, age and ethnicity. Despite a large increase in the levels of interregional migration, migration structures in England have remained fairly stable over time.

This policy briefing compares educational, employment and occupational performance of second-generation immigrants to their White British peers over the last two decades. Second-generation immigrants generally achieve higher education levels than their White British peers, and experience an increased upward mobility relative to their parents. However, they show lower employment rates compared to White British individuals.

During the worst phase of the Covid-19 outbreak, the UK government's slogan was: stay home, save lives, protect the NHS. This message clearly shows that protecting the capacity of NHS services is vital for dealing with such a pandemic. An important question is whether the NHS had been protected in the years leading up to the outbreak.

The 2017 SoGIS is an online survey collecting detailed information from international students in UK Higher Education in their final year of study, covering post-study intentions, travel patterns, use of public services, and working patterns.

This report presents the findings of a study into diasporas in the EU and the US, providing mapping data for key diaspora groups and delivering concrete recommendations for their engagement. The study was funded by the European Commission's Directorate General for Home Affairs.

The study gives an expert assessment of the main trends in the situation of migrants with regard to social assistance and access to social services, including an in-depth analysis of the main determinants of these trends and a comprehensive account of the mutual interaction of migration policies and social assistance policies.

This study provides an overview of the situation of immigrants in the European Union, focusing on the process of their integration and its impact on the labour market. It explores employment, education, legal status and integration policy across EU member states.

This policy brief brings together and discusses evidence about the role of international students in the UK, focusing on their migration behaviour and preferences, and the influence of the Brexit process on their choices.

International students make up nearly one in five of all students in UK Higher Education Institutions. This policy brief provides an overview of a new survey of final-year international students carried out by a joint team at the ESRC Centre for Population Change, Office for National Statistics and Universities UK.

This paper focuses on the determinants of the labor market situation of young people in developed and developing countries, with particular emphasis on the role of vocational training and education policies. We argue in favor of vocational education and training systems combining work experience and general education.

An increase in the minimum wage in immigrant destination countries raises the earnings that low-skilled migrants could expect to attain if they were to migrate. While some studies for the US indicate that a higher minimum wage induces immigration, contrasting evidence shows that immigrants are less likely to move into areas with higher or more frequent increases in the minimum wage.

The welfare magnet hypothesis postulates that individuals' migration decisions are influenced by the generosity of the welfare system in the destination country. The empirical evidence is rather mixed, with the most robust studies supporting the idea that welfare generosity can influence migration decisions but that factors such as social and family networks seem to play a more significant role.