We estimate the impact sporting events have on local crime rates using the technique developed in Arellano and Bond (2001). For events, we consider the presence of MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL franchises as well as whether a city held one of the respective championships, the Olympics, or World Cup...

This paper provides an empirical examination of impact the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States on local employment. In contrast to ex ante economic impact reports that suggest large increases in employment due to the tournament, an ex post examination of employment in 9 host metropolitan...

Prison-based work programs as well as income payments to released prisoners are both potential ways to reduce recidivism. Currently, these two components are loosely connected as prisoners who participate in work programs save, voluntarily or as a requirement, a fraction of their earnings and...

We propose a mechanism that eliminates the incentive for risk-averse agents to influence government policy via political contributions. The mechanism requires the government to create a political insurance exchange where agents can insure against the outcome of a government decision and firms...

The illicit nonmedical use of prescription drugs is studied in a model where individuals with imperfectly observable health conditions seek prescription drugs for either medical or nonmedical reasons. The equilibrium number of medical and nonmedical users is endogenous and depends on economic...

A fixed wage is inefficient in a standard search model when workers endogenously separate from employment. We derive an efficient employment contract that involves agents paying a hiring fee (or bond) upon the formation of a match. We estimate the fixed wage and efficient contract assuming the...

The local, state, and federal governments, along with the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee, spent roughly $1.9 billion in direct costs related to planning and hosting the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In this paper, we investigate whether these expenditures increased employment. At the state...

While presidential inaugurations routinely attract hundreds of thousands or more visitors to Washington, D.C. for the quadrennial celebration, our examination of employment from the Current Employment Statistics survey from 1939 to the present and both employment and unemployment from the...

I investigate how long it takes for released inmates to find a job, and when they find a job, how their incarceration rate changes. An on-the-job search model with crime is used to model criminal behavior, derive the estimation method and analyze several policies including a job placement...

As the economics profession is split over the expected impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, we analyze the effects as if it were an experiment. Specifically, we analyze the effects of spending on employment using a difference-in-difference approach by state. To date, we...