CLEAN - LSE Seminar Series - Anna Piil Damm (Aarhus University)
The next CLEAN seminar, in collaboration with LSE, will take place on Monday, April 15th 2024, from 4-5 p.m. Italian time, in Room 2-B3-SR02 of the Roentgen building.
The presenter will be Anna Piil Damm (Aarhus University). The title of the paper is "Place-Based Policies in Deprived Neighbourhoods: Effects on Crime, Inactivity, Residential Composition and House Prices".
Abstract:
This paper evaluates the effects of an intervention in disadvantaged public-housing neighbourhoods in Denmark. These neighbourhoods were eligible for additional funding for infrastructural improvements and social programmes and an increased local police presence that aimed to combat criminal activity among residents. The local government formulated a development plan for each neighbourhood in cooperation with the local housing association. The paper investigates both whether the programme changed the residential composition of these neighbourhoods, as well as effects on inactivity (neither in employment nor education) and conviction rates among those originally resident in the target areas. The control group is similar, yet untargeted neighbourhoods and their residents. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that the programme reduced crime, both through a compositional change, and, importantly, through an 11% reduction in the likelihood of a criminal conviction among the original residents, including those with a history of criminal activity. The programme did not affect the likelihood of being inactive. Our findings suggest that programmes which directly target anti-social and criminal behaviour can be effective in improving poorer neighbourhoods. House prices in adjacent neighbourhoods were unaffected, possibly because the crime preventive effects of the programme outweighed the stigma effects of the programme.
The seminar will take place in Room 2-B3-SR02, 2nd floor, via Roentgen 1.
You may follow the event online via Zoom Meetings at the following link: https://unibocconi-it.zoom.us/j/93537893727?pwd=cm9lbEsyRFQwUXExc1NiRjN5dVh2dz09 - Meeting ID: 935 3789 3727 - Passcode: 327396