Daniel Cunha Byström

I am a Ph.D. student in Economics at the University of Gothenburg. My research is in applied microeconomics, with interests spanning the economics of crime, labor economics, and public policy. I work with large-scale administrative registers – including newly linked data on confirmed gang members – to study how criminal behavior, labor markets , and social institutions interact.

My current projects examine (i) how family transmission and peer exposure facilitate gang recruitment and the expansion of organized crime groups in Sweden; (ii) how local incarceration rates shape neighborhood crime across subpopulations; and (iii) how gang-related violence influences firms and local economic activity.

I am on the 2025–26 academic job market.

Research

From Friends to ‘Family’: Schools, Neighborhoods, and Gang Recruitment (Job Market Paper)
Draft available upon request.

Abstract

This paper examines how gang-related criminal behavior spreads through extended family and peer networks, using newly linked Swedish administrative data covering over 18,000 individuals with confirmed gang affiliation. Within-family correlations reveal intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior where parental criminal history accounts for only half of a broader latent “crime-family” effect, with older siblings explaining most of the remaining influence. Building on this, I study what I term “gateway peers”---students whose older siblings have committed gang-related crimes---and estimate peer effects using quasi-random variation in cohort-to-cohort composition. Exposure in grade 7 significantly increases both general and gang-related offending by early adulthood, with effects concentrated within schools, not neighborhoods, and strongest when gateway peers share the student’s background. Excluding areas where gangs are not present, exposure also significantly increases the probability of being confirmed as gang-affiliated after compulsory school. I provide additional evidence of a recruitment mechanism beyond general peer influence: spillovers disappear when gateway siblings are absent during the expected recruitment window, and exposed students are more likely to co-offend with gateway peers’ relatives and confirmed gang members. Exposure further reduces academic performance and increases diagnoses of mood disorders among adolescents. The findings highlight the role of sibling-linked peer networks in shaping criminal trajectories and suggest that preventative interventions targeting school environments may help disrupt recruitment into organized crime.

The Effect of Neighborhood Incarceration Rates on the Criminal Behavior of Neighborhood Peers with Randi Hjalmarsson (GU) and Matthew Lindquist (SOFI) Draft available soon.

Work in progress

Encrypted Chats and Organized Crime Groups (larger research agenda) with Tom Kirchmaier (LSE), Magdalena Dominguez (IFS), Manne Gerell (MAU), Kim Moeller (MAU)

Age at Crime and Punishment with Akib Khan (SSE) and Erik Lundberg (UU)

Disinformation and Early Childhood Health with Cecilia Ahsan Jansson (GU)

Contact

Email: daniel.cunha.bystrom@gu.se
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden