The Credibility Revolution in the Empirical Analysis of Crime

I review recent developments in the economic analysis of crime, focusing in particular on organized crime and corruption. I first discuss the main challenges to the empirical identification of causal relationships—namely, measurement error due to endogenous reporting of crime and the fact that randomized controlled trials are rarely an option when studying crime. I then discuss recent advancements made possible by the combination of detailed micro data and quasi-experimental methods.