This paper evaluates the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on inter-judge sentencing disparity, which is defined as the differences in average nominal prison sentence lengths for comparable caseloads assigned to different judges. This disparity is measured as the dispersion of a random...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on inter-judge sentencing disparity, which is defined as the differences in average nominal prison sentence lengths for comparable caseloads assigned to different judges. This disparity is measured as the dispersion of a random...

Most studies of the deterrence effect of incarceration treat a year in prison as having the same deterrence effect regardless of the conditions of incarceration. In contrast, we estimate both the impact of custody rate and prison location changes on female crime rates. We take advantage of the...

Reports about runaway jury awards have become so common that it is widely accepted that the US jury system needs to be ‘fixed.’ Proposals to limit the right to a jury trial and increase judicial discretion over awards implicitly assume that judges decide cases differently than juries. We...

We investigate the impact of the race and income of the jury pool on trial awards. We find that the average tort award increases as black and Hispanic county population rates increase and especially as black and Hispanic county poverty rates increase. An increase in the black countypoverty rate...

The Coase theorem presents two criteria for evaluating regulation. The first is how successful the regulation is at reaching the efficient outcome relative to private solutions. The second and less discussed criterion is how the regulation affects the distribution of wealth. Previous studies of...

It has long since been established that children raised by single parents are more likely to become sexually active, commit illegal acts, and use illegal drugs at young ages. What has not been determined is whether or not there is a causal effect associated with the disintegration of the family....

Politicians are not neutral maximizers of the public good, they respond to incentives just like other individuals. We apply the same reasoning to those politicians in robes called judges. We argue that elected judges, particularly partisan elected judges, have an incentive to redistribute wealth...