This paper shows that most of the large recent increases in campaign spending for federal and state offices can be explained by higher government spending. This result holds for both federal and state legislative campaigns and gubernatorial races and across many different specifications. The...

This paper examines the sizes of the fines, damage awards, remediation costs, and market value losses imposed on companies that violate environmental regulations. Firms that violate environmental laws suffer statistically significant losses in the market value of firm equity. The losses,...

It is frequently assumed that safe-storage gun laws reduce accidental gun deaths and total suicides, while the possible impact on crime rates is ignored. We find no support that safe-storage laws reduce either juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicides. Instead, these storage requirements appear...

We examine several theoretical and empirical issues concerning punitive damage awards and their importance to business. First, we argue that previous justifications of punitive damage awards ignore the role of private contracting and reputation in assuring contractual performance. In the absence...