Using state-level variation in the timing of political reforms, we find that an increase in female representation in local government induces a large and significant rise in documented crimes against women in India. Our evidence suggests that this increase is good news, driven primarily by...

We exploit exogenous variation in legal status following the January 2007 European Union enlargement to estimate its effect on immigrant crime. We difference out unobserved time-varying factors by (i) comparing recidivism rates of immigrants from the "new" and "candidate" member countries; and...

We empirically analyze the illicit trade in cultural property and antiques, taking advantage of different reporting incentives between source and destination countries. We generate a measure of illicit trafficking in these goods by comparing imports recorded in United States' customs data and...

We construct measures of the extent to which the four main newspapers in Argentina report government corruption on their front page during the period 1998-2007 and correlate them with government advertising. The correlation is negative. The size is considerable—a one standard deviation...

There is a widespread perception that externalities from troubled children are significant, though measuring them is difficult due to data and methodological limitations. We estimate the negative spillovers caused by children from troubled families by exploiting a unique dataset in which...

Understanding the degree of geographical crime displacement is crucial for the design of crime prevention policies. This paper documents changes in automobile theft risk that were generated by the plausibly exogenous introduction of Lojack, a highly effective stolen vehicle recovery device, into...

Since 2007, many states passed laws prohibiting text messaging while driving. Using vehicular fatality data from across the United States and standard difference-in-differences techniques, bans appear moderately successful at reducing single-vehicle, single-occupant accidents if bans are...

We exploit the 2006 Italian prison pardon to evaluate peer effects in criminal behavior. The pardon randomly commutes actual sentences to expected sentences for 40 percent of the Italian prison population. Using prison and geographical origin to construct reference groups for former inmates, we...

Increasing criminal sanctions may reduce crime through two primary mechanisms: deterrence and incapacitation. Disentangling their effects is crucial for optimal policy setting. I use sentence enhancements due to the introduction of state add-on gun laws to isolate the deterrent effect of...

We estimate the causal effect of mandatory participation in military service on individuals' subsequent involvement in criminal activities. To identify this causal effect, we exploit the random assignment of young men to conscription in Argentina through a draft lottery. Using a dataset that...