Revenue generated through the criminal justice system has become a key component of
local government budgets across the United States. Although numerous restrictions exist to …

A common exercise in empirical studies is a “robustness check”, where the researcher
examines how certain “core” regression coefficient estimates behave when the regression …

There have been dozens of high-profile mass shootings in recent decades. This paper
presents three main findings about the impact of mass shootings on gun policy. First, mass …

Policing in the USA is highly decentralized. Variation in the jurisdictional and organizational
structure of policing agencies can theoretically lead to different decisions about how these …

The efficiency of any police action depends on the relative magnitude of its crime-reducing
benefits and legitimacy costs. Policing strategies that are socially efficient at the city level …

Simultaneity complicates the estimation of the causal effect of police on crime. We overcome
this obstacle by focusing on a mass layoff of Oregon State Police in February of 2003. Due …

We estimate the degree to which individual police officers practice racial discrimination.
Using a bunching estimation design and data from the Florida Highway Patrol, we show that …

A new meta-field of “forensic economics” has begun to emerge, uncovering evidence of
hidden behavior in a variety of domains. Examples include teachers cheating on exams …

A growing body of evidence indicates that local police departments are being used to
provide revenue for municipalities by imposing and collecting fees, fines, and asset …

While survey evidence suggests widespread financial fragility in the US, causal evidence on
the implications of typical, negative income shocks is scarce. I estimate the impact of …