This paper estimates the causal effect of police on traffic fatalities and injuries. Due to simultaneity, estimating the causal effect of police on crime is often difficult. We overcome this obstacle by focusing on a mass layoff of Oregon State Police in February of 2003, stemming from changes...

To a very large extent, politics is agency. Indeed, agent-principal relationships pervade public and public-private behavior. This paper reviews the extensive but not yet integrated literature applying agency concepts to political settings. This includes agency in definitions of politics or...

Empirical evidence on the causes and effects of inequality suggests the existence of a vicious circle of mutually reinforcing inequality and corruption. Despite the broad empirical evidence, there are only a few formal theoretical models on these dynamics. Relying on a game-theoretic approach,...

Previous studies have suggested that more liberal abortion laws should lead to a decrease in marriage rates among young women as 'shotgun weddings' are no longer necessary. Empirical evidence from the United States lends support to that hypothesis. This paper presents an alternative theory of...

This paper studies the mental distress caused by bereavement. The largest emotional losses are from the death of a spouse; the second-worst in severity are the losses from the death of a child; the third-worst is the death of a parent. The paper explores how happiness regression equations might be...

Based on an analysis of cartel prosecutions since 2007, this article assesses the way the European Commission has built up its fines in practice. The fines are compared with those imposed by the European Commission over the period from 1999 to 2006. The main findings are that, while fines have...

The Constitution of Tonga, 132 years old in 2007 -- indeed one of the world's oldest extant constitutions -- has recently, for the first time in history, been subjected to significant scrutiny by the people who live under it. The review process has also canvassed the views of the thousands of...

Previous studies have suggested that more liberal abortion laws should lead to a decrease in marriage rates among young women as 'shotgun weddings' are no longer necessary. Empirical evidence from the United States lends support to that hypothesis. This paper presents an alternative theory of...

While the labor market implications of mergers have been historically ignored as "out of market" effects, recent actions by the Department of Justice (DOJ) place buyer market power (i.e., monopsony) at the forefront of antitrust policy. We develop a theory of multi-plant ownership and monopsony...

This article looks at the growing use of the counterfactual approach in European and UK competition laws. The term counterfactual has not been a feature of European competition law, with the exception of merger control, to date. However, with the move to an effects-based approach,...