Eine Analyse amtlicher Daten für die Jahre 1977 bis 2001 liefert deutliche Anzeichen für die Wirksamkeit polizeilicher Arbeit und gerichtlicher Sanktionen. Als wichtigster kriminalitätsreduzierender Faktor erwies sich die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Aufklärung von Straftaten und der Verurteilung...

Does the death penalty save lives? A surge of recent interest in this question has yielded a series of papers purporting to show robust and precise estimates of a substantial deterrent effect of capital punishment. We assess the various approaches that have been used in this literature, testing...

In this paper we test for the theory of deterrence. We exploit the natural experiment provided by the Collective Clemency Bill passed by the Italian Parliament in July 2006. As a consequence of the provisions of the bill, expected punishment to former inmates recommitting a crime can be...

We use a unique data set on post-release behavior of former Italian inmates to estimate the effect of prison conditions on recidivism. By combining different sources of data we exploit variation in prison conditions measured by: 1) the extent of overcrowding at the prison level, 2) the number of...

This paper studies the effects of both labor market conditions and asset poverty on the property crimes involvement of American males. Since the mid 60's the property crimes arrest rate has been four times higher for black males if compared to white ones. Another set of stylised facts show for...

We estimate the causal effects of parental incarceration on children's short- and long-run out-comes using administrative data from Sweden. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous varia-tion in parental incarceration from the random assignment of criminal defendants to judges with different...

The rate of incarceration has increased dramatically in the U.S. since 1980. We explore the implications of this increased incarceration on national poverty measurement using micro data for the period 1979-1997. We make use of an as-yet unexplored data set on prisoner earnings, in conjunction...