Do Place-Based Crime Reduction Policies Work?: Evidence from the West Philadelphia Promise Zone

85 Pages Posted: 8 Nov 2021 Last revised: 21 Apr 2023

See all articles by Alexander Marsella

Alexander Marsella

West Virginia University - Department of Economics

Date Written: November 4, 2021

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative on violent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of educational, public-safety, and quality-of-life improvement grants were disbursed from 2014 onward. My difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects and cluster bootstrapped standard errors provides the first causal evidence of a modest (approximately 10%) reduction in violent crime, primarily assaults, attributable to this program. By the end of 2019, violent crime in the Promise Zone descended to around the average level across Philadelphia. A synthetic difference-in-differences estimator corroborates this result, with some important caveats. In addition, I find a significant reduction in violent crime in and around schools given GEAR UP and Promise Neighborhood grants, two of the largest grants facilitated through the Promise Zone program.

Keywords: Promise zone, Crime, Place based policy, Violence

JEL Classification: K42, J18, R38, H53, R11

Suggested Citation

Marsella, Alexander, Do Place-Based Crime Reduction Policies Work?: Evidence from the West Philadelphia Promise Zone (November 4, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3956747 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3956747

Alexander Marsella (Contact Author)

West Virginia University - Department of Economics ( email )

Morgantown, WV 26506
United States

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