Abstract
This paper investigates whether domestic migration of households in urban China has any impact on their risks of being defrauded. By utilizing the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2015, we find that domestic migration is significantly positively related to households’ risk of being defrauded. After controlling the corresponding individual and household characteristics, the result indicates that the probability of being defrauded with any losses and the amount of money being defrauded of migrant households in urban areas increased significantly by 0.98 and 7.43% compared to local urban households, respectively. This positive relationship between the risk of being defrauded and migration status of households is mainly concentrated in eastern China and highly educated households. Besides, the baseline results remain robust when we perform robustness checks, including the IV estimation which tackles the potential endogeneity of the migration status of the household head. Furthermore, we find that migrant households with fewer local social networks or less satisfaction of the current level of social security tend to be defrauded more intensively. The findings call for reflections on policies of domestic migration and urbanization and their unintentional consequences of social integration and security.
Highlights
In the criminal law of China, fraud refers to the act of defrauding public and private properties by making up facts or concealing the truth for the purpose of illegal possession
We employ the 2015 wave of China Household Finance Survey data and find that domestic migration has a positive effect on the risk of households being defrauded
This positive effect mainly comes from households that live in eastern China or are highly educated
Summary
In the criminal law of China, fraud refers to the act of defrauding public and private properties by making up facts or concealing the truth for the purpose of illegal possession. As fraud crimes have increased significantly since the 2010s, it is important to investigate whether migration status has any impact on the risk of households being defrauded in urban areas. What is the effect of domestic migration on the risk of households being defrauded in urban China? This paper adds to the literature in that we use micro household survey data to empirically test the effect of domestic migration on the risk of households being defrauded in urban China, and to investigate the potential causes why the migrants are cheated and victimized in fraud crimes. The control variables at the individual level include age, age, male, party, health, marry, eduy, employed, pension, soc_me_ins, un_ins, hous_fud, risk_seek, risk_aver, tra_fin, and atten_fin Those at the household level include child_dep, old_dep, fam_size, house, ln_asset, ln_hhincome, pro_risk, ln_loan, and pro_plloan.
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