In this paper we evaluate what economists have learned over the past 40 years about the determinants of crime. We base our evaluation on two kinds of evidence: an examination of aggregate data over long time periods and across countries, and a critical review of the literature. We argue that...

The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is widely believed to save lives by reducing traffic fatalities among underage drivers. Further, the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act, which pressured all states to adopt an MLDA of 21, is regarded as having contributed enormously to this life saving effect....

This paper examines the relation between prohibitions and violence, using the historical behavior of the homicide rate in the United States. The results document that increases in enforcement of drug and alcohol prohibition have been associated with increases in the homicide rate, and auxiliary...

We reexamine the expectations theory of the term structure using data at the short end of the maturity spectrum. We find that prior to the founding ofthe Federal Reserve System in 1915, the spread between long rates and short rates has substantial predictive power for the path of interest rates;...

The U.S. fiscal imbalance — the excess of what we expect to spend, including repayment of our debt, over what government expects to receive in revenue — is large and growing. And with politicians proposing large new expenditures, little is being done to rectify the country's fiscal health....

The concept of fiscal imbalance is familiar to economists but less so to policymakers, politicians, and the public. Yet understanding this concept is essential to rational discussion of government financial health. This paper provides a primer on government fiscal imbalance.The material is not...

We examine two measures of monthly manufacturing production. The first is the index of industrial production; the second is constructed from the accounting identity that output equals sales plus the change in inventories. We show that the means, variances, and serial correlation coefficients of...

The effect of drug prohibition on drug consumption is a critical issue in debates over drug policy. One episode that provides information on the consumption-reducing effect of drug prohibition is the Chinese legalization of opium in 1858. In this paper we examine the impact of China's opium...

Among the many unresolved questions regarding the determinants of violence is the role of prohibitions against drugs and alcohol. Conventional wisdom holds that consumption of these goods encourages violence and that prohibitions discourage such consumption; thus, prohibitions reduce violence....

This paper examines the impact of Prohibition on alcohol consumption. Since data on both the price and quantity of alcohol are unavailable during the Prohibition period, it is not possible to estimate Prohibition's impact on either the supply or demand for alcohol. Assuming the existence of a...