Mega Events in Sports and Crime

Abstract

Despite an increasing desire to host major sport events there is almost no research that tries to identify and measure the possible negative spillovers they generate. In particular, there is limited understanding about crime responses. This article investigates the causal relation between hosting the 1990 Football World Cup and crime rates at the province level. Using a fixed effect estimator to control for province-level differences in crime, we find that hosting the Football World Cup leads to a significant increase in most property crimes (bag-snatching, pick-pocketing, shoplifting, and burglary) but only in one violent crime (intentional personal injuries).