Haze and Crime : Evidence from Court Judgments in China

Utilizing 1.5 million court judgment files in China during 2015–2018, we investigate the causal relationship between short-term air pollution exposure and crime rates in the context of the developing world. Using thermal inversion as the instrument for air pollution, we find that a 10 µg/m3 increase in daily PM2.5 leads to a 1.58% increase in the daily crime rate of intentional injury, whereas air pollution has no statistically significant effect on the crime rate of danger drive, theft, and robbery. Using detailed characteristics at the case and criminal level, we show that criminals in these pollution-induced crimes are more likely to be non-first time offenders, non-accomplices, less likely to carry weapons, and more likely to voluntarily surrender. In addition, we find that the salience of pollution plays an important role in shaping the criminals’ moods to commit crimes. Our results have implications for measuring the social costs of pollution and designing crime reduction policies