This paper shows the relationship between corruption and migration. In particular, countries with much corruption are shown to encourage emigration and discourage immigration because they provide worse and unpredictable economic conditions, more insecurity, and a lower quality of life. This hypothesis is confirmed empirically with a cross-sectional dataset with bilateral migration data covering 230 countries. Well-known implications of the gravity model are confirmed here: larger populations, a common language and a common border increase migration, while distance between two countries decreases migration. Furthermore, education, GDP per capita, inflation in the destination country, as well as corruption and education in the origin country can robustly explain migration. Corruption thus appears to be a push factor of migration.

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This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin. Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions.The SOEPpapers are available at http://www.diw.de/soeppapers Editors:Jürgen Schupp (Sociology) AbstractThis paper investigates the effect of local crime on well-being in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a novel data set constructed from official police crime statistics, covering both counties and urban districts for the time period between 1994 and 2012. We find that local area crime has a significantly negative impact on life satisfaction, makes residents worry more frequently, and worry more about crime in Germany. In particular, a 1% increase in the crime frequency ratio results in a 0.043 standard deviation decrease in life satisfaction. This effect is driven almost exclusively by violent crimes, while property crimes and other crimes have no significant impact on well-being.

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