Urban architecture and crime: the impact of a reduction in transportation costs on the geographical distribution of crime in São Paulo

• Grant number: 16/10712-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: August 01, 2016
• End date: January 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Regional and Urban Economics
• Principal Investigator: Joao Manoel Pinho de Mello
• Grantee: Joao Manoel Pinho de Mello
• Host Investigator: Filipe Robin Campante
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa (Insper). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Abstract

The goal of the project is to estimate the causal relationship from transport to distribution of crime in urban areas in the city of São Paulo. I explore an unique empirical opportunity. In August 2004, the city of São Paulo introduced the Bilhete Único (BU), which allows the free use of buses for a period of time. Before BU, users paid each time they switched buses. In practice, BU caused a significant reduction in bus fares for some routes, but not others. On routes that required bus changes, the rate fell by about 30%. Because the BU was a citywide intervention, the impact of differences between routes are random. Thus, we can interpreted correlation between drops in fares and changes in violence as causal. The topic is of paramount importance. The criminology literature shows that crime is concentrated spatially. Moreover, there is evidence that hotspot policing - policing focused on crimonogenic areas - is effective, in the sense that crime does not completely spillover to neighboring areas. The reasons for the absence of the spillover is still a puzzle in the literature. At the same time, there little evidence on the importance of transportation costs to explain the spatial patterns of crime. Measuring the construction of transportation costs is an important step towards understanding the absence of the spillover effect. (AU)