Authors
JESSE K Anttila-Hughes, EMILY Wetherley
Publication date
2016
Journal
The Association of Environmental and Resource Economist at the Allied Social Science Associations, San Francisco
Description
We combine nineteen years of regional Filipino crime data with climate data to test three distinct hypotheses regarding climate variability's influence on crime. Mirroring recent results in the climate and conflict literature, we find that high temperatures are nonlinearly associated with increases in the murder rate. Consistent with the literature suggesting a causal link between poverty and crime, we find that climate conditions associated with low crop yields increase rates of property crimes. Lastly, we find that tropical cyclones increase property crime rates the year following impact, consistent with prior evidence suggesting that cyclones' poverty effects are substantial but take time to emerge. Our findings demonstrate that climate variability can influence crime rates through multiple distinct economic and noneconomic channels in a middle-income country, and in particular support both the growing consensus that high temperatures increase rates of interpersonal violence as well as a causal interpretation of poverty’s association with property crime.
Total citations
20172018201920202021202220232024113
Scholar articles
JK Anttila-Hughes, E Wetherley - The Association of Environmental and Resource …, 2016