The project aims to estimate the impact of immigration on crime in France, assuming that such an impact exists, using statistical techniques that allow a causal link to be established. The only econometric study on this issue relating to France used data that are now more than 20 years old and, although it found a statistically significant association between the proportion of immigrants in a department and the crime rate in that department, the model used does not allow a causal link to be established and this association could be due to the fact that immigrants tend to settle in more disadvantaged departments. Our project aims to study this issue using more sophisticated methods which, unlike this study, make it possible to establish a causal link between immigration and crime if it exists, rather than attributing to immigration what is really explaines by socio-economic factors.
