The sharing economy and urban crime

This paper examines whether the intensity of Airbnb is associated with city-level crime rates. This research sheds light on matters adjacent to current activities in public policy as cities engage in city-level Airbnb regulation. At the same time, Airbnb continues to expand. In the aggregate, Airbnb usage is associated with no significant crime increase but rather significant decreases in crimes of private conflict that persist in direction, significance, and magnitude over time. I do uncover evidence that two types of rooms, private rooms (44%) and shared rooms (1.5%), appear to be positively associated with both property crimes and crimes against society, though it is not always significant. Those same crimes have a roughly mirrored reduction as entire place usage increases, representing the majority and remainder (54.5%) of Airbnb rentals. More importantly, the crime reduction retains the same approximate magnitude for 12 months afterward, and no pretrends are apparent. This aligns with the idea that Airbnb offerings in the aggregate are generally crime-neutral or modestly crime-reducing rather than the prevailing opinion that they are criminogenic while highlighting considerable heterogeneity in their offerings.