This study employs a panel of U.S. state-level data over the years 1978-1997 to estimate the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Particular attention is paid to problems of endogeneity bias arising from the non-random assignment of death penalty laws across states and a simultaneous...

This paper employs fixed and random effects regressions to analyze panel data from the 50 states and Washington, D.C., between the years of 1980 and 2005, to estimate the relationship between the death penalty and homicide rate, and the degree to which this relationship affects crime outcomes....