This article investigates the determinants of criminal activity among juveniles in the United States. It uses a survey of U.S. high school students conducted in 1995, which provides detailed information on offenses; personal, family, and neighborhood characteristics; as well as deterrence...

Recent theoretical models underscore the potential asymmetric response of various behaviors, ranging from criminal activity to smoking. In this paper, we use state-level panel and individual-level panel data to document the previously unnoticed asymmetric response of crime to changes in the...

This is the first study that decomposes unemployment into its structural and cyclical components and investigates their impact on income distribution, controlling for the influence of inflation. Increases in structural unemployment have a substantial aggravating impact on income inequality....

This paper presents a dynamic model of criminal activity. Individuals are endowed with legal and criminal human capital. Potential incomes in legal and criminal sectors depend on the level of the relevant human capital, the rate of return and random shocks. Human capital can be enhanced by...

Using data on the entire population of prisoners under a sentence of death in the United States between 1977 and 1997, this paper investigates the probability of transition from death row to various possible outcomes (execution, death by other causes, commutation, and overturned sentence or...

This paper examines discrimination in mortgage lending in teh United States over three decades in 1960 to 1990. We focus on whether deregulation, increased Federal oversight and enhanced competition reduce discrimination as becker's theory suggests (Becker, 1971). We find that discrimination is...

This paper uses a rich employer-employee matched data set to investigate the existence and the extent of nonprofit and part-time wage and compensation differentials in child care. The empirical strategy adjusts for workers' self-selection into the for-profit or the nonprofit sector and into...