Public action to prevent crime is often driven by concerns about public safety. But what generatesthose concerns ? ]s it crime, or something else ? Using survey data for Brazil, we find that thedesire for greater public safety has a positive own-income effect, but a negative neighborhood-income effect; living in a poor area increases concern for public safety at given own-income. Theown-income effect is nonlinear, such that inequality attenuates the aggregate concern for greatersafety. Education raises concern, and strongly so when neighbors are poorly educated. Controllingfor these factors, we identify a significant causal effect of lack of public safety on the desire forgreater safety. Classification-JEL: D12; D60; H41 Keywords: Perceived public safety; crime; inequality; Brazil File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/01093.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 148297 bytes Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20010093