Publications
Crime During Power Outages
American Law and Economics Review (Forthcoming)
with Neel Lal and Jason Query
Variation VisualizationDownload
In February of 2021, Texas experienced a winter storm that caused rolling blackouts throughout the state. We exploit the pseudo-random variation of blackouts in Austin to unravel the relationship between electrical power, light, and crime. Using hour by ZIP code level data and relying on fixed effects to absorb variation caused by cold temperatures or similar factors, we find that power outages do not impact crime and we rule out large effects in either direction. We estimate a 95% confidence interval of the elasticity of crime with respect to power outages of -0.004 to 0.002. We also explore the extent to which the “random” outages disproportionately affected poor and minority residents of Austin. We find that areas with more foreign and Hispanic residents experienced significantly more outages than other areas.
Halfway Home? Residential Housing and Reincarceration
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (2023)
DownloadEvery year, hundreds of thousands of people are released from prison. For many, the transition back to society includes a mandatory stay in residential housing. In this research, I estimate the effect of residential housing on reincarceration using administrative data from Iowa. I address selection into residential housing by instrumenting for residential housing assignment with the rate at which randomly assigned case managers recommend it. I find no evidence that Iowa’s costly investment in residential housing results in reduced reincarceration rates relative to parole. Instead, assignment to residential housing accelerates the timing of reincarceration. I go on to show that residential housing increases reincarceration due to violent crimes and technical violations. This is partially offset by decreases in drug and public order crimes.
Diversity and the Timing of Preference in Hiring Decisions
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2021)
with Glen Waddell
DownloadWe consider a hiring procedure in which candidates are evaluated in sequence by two agents of the firm. We illustrate how one agent’s interest in enhancing diversity can indirectly influence the other agent’s hiring decisions. Where there is an unequal interest in diversity across the two decision makers, this can be sufficiently offsetting that even highly productive candidates who also enhance diversity are less likely to be hired. In an experimental setting, we first establish that incentivizing subjects to choose females (males) induces them into choosing females (males). Importantly, then, we establish that when subjects who screen candidates in an earlier stage know about this pending incentive they systematically avoid forwarding females (males) when they jeopardize the candidacy of higher-ranking male (female) candidates.
Far From Home and All Alone: The Impact of Prison Visitation on Recidivism
American Law and Economics Review (2019)
Runner Up for Best Paper Award Published by ALER in 2019
DownloadTightening corrections budgets, the lack of a legal right to in-person prison visitation, and the increasing availability of video visitation have led many prison and jail administrators to consider limiting opportunities for in-person visitation. This is concerning given the large literature which argues inmates receiving in-person visits are less likely to recidivate upon release. On the other hand, these studies have not determined whether this relationship is causal or is instead driven by the correlation between receiving visits and having a network of family and friends that can offer support upon release. In this paper, I estimate the causal effect of in-person visitation on recidivism using unique, administrative data from the Iowa Department of Corrections. I find that visitation itself, as currently implemented in Iowa, has no impact on recidivism. Instead, my results suggest prison policies that create meaningful support networks available to prisoners upon release may yield significant benefits.
Overlapping Marathons: What Happens to a Female Runner's Pace When the Men Catch Up?
Southern Economic Journal (2019)
with Erica G. Birk and Glen Waddell
DownloadWe exploit a highly competitive environment in which elite-female athletes are exposed to the presence of men, but without being in direct competition with them. Specifically, we use variation in the how fast the fastest man runs in the New York City Marathon to identify the potential influence of men on female performance while holding constant female-runners’ marginal incentives to perform. Our results suggest that the presence of men negatively affects the performance of female runners differentially across ability, with performance declines concentrated among lower-ability runners.
The Impact of Prison Programming on Recidivism
Corrections: Policy, Practice, and Research (2018)
DownloadPrison programming is expensive. From 2009-2011, Iowa spent more than $24 million on prison programming. Some of the programs typically offered in prisons are specifically designed to reduce recidivism while others, such as job training, may reduce recidivism indirectly. Unfortunately, understanding whether programming is effective at reducing recidivism is complicated by prisoners' ability to select into program participation and completion. This paper uses an innovative method to estimate program impacts. Specifically, the sample is limited to prisoners eligible for each program. The sample is further restricted to only those prisoners that either participated in the program or did not participate due to factors beyond their control. Among this sample, nearest neighbor matching is used to evaluate the impact of 16 prison program categories on recidivism. No prison program consistently improved recidivism outcomes in Iowa during the period of analysis.
The Trade Consequences of Maritime Insecurity: Evidence from Somali Piracy
Review of International Economics (2015)
with Alfredo Burlando and Anca Cristea
DownloadIn the past decade, pirates from Somalia have carried out thousands of attacks on cargo ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, causing what others have identified as significant damage to maritime trade. In this paper, we use variations in the spread and intensity of Somali piracy to estimate its effect on the volume of international trade. By comparing trade volume changes along shipping routes located in pirate waters to those that are not, we estimate that Somali piracy reduced trade by 1.9 percent per year from 2000 to 2010. In addition, we find larger reductions for trade in bulk goods, which are generally shipped by sea and are more likely to fall prey to piracy attacks. While the trade costs of piracy are significant, our estimates suggest that they are much lower than what has been suggested in the existing literature.
Working Papers
A Second Chance at Schooling? Unintended Consequences of Prison Education
with Romaine Campbell
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5744603 Despite rapid growth in US prison education programs, causal evidence of their effectiveness is limited. Leveraging detailed administrative data from Iowa, we estimate the impact of prison education on future incarceration, employment, and education, using course availability to instrument for course-taking. We find that course-taking increases reincarceration for technical violations but not for new crimes. Exploring mechanisms, we find that education participants are 14\% likelier to be assigned to work release---probably with the aim of supporting their reentry into society. However, work release \textit{increases} revocation risk. A mediation exercise confirms no relationship between education and reincarceration after we control for release type. We also find that course-taking increases the probability of post-release employment, consistent with the increased likelihood of assignment to work release.
Correctional Officer Training: Can a Five Minute Intervention Improve Prisoner Outcomes?
with Jennifer Chalmers, Selena Ledger, Clare Power, and Amanda Rebar
DownloadWe test the effectiveness of training correctional officers and staff methods for improving their daily interactions with inmates. Specifically, the Five-Minute Intervention (FMI) is a two-day training program that encourages participants to see themselves as agents of positive change and offers tools for creating short, positive interactions with inmates. We explore the efficacy of FMI training when coupled with a behavioral intervention designed to improve the retention and usage of FMI skills over time. Using data from two prisons in New South Wales, Australia (NSW), we find that FMI training with the behavioral intervention may have reduced infractions while it was occurring, but did not lead to long term changes in infractions. Administrative and survey data from inmates also provide evidence that training, inclusive of the behavioral intervention, had improved inmate/staff relations. Five months after training occurred, inmates at the treated facility earned more at work, engaged with officers to ask for help more often, and reported improved responses from staff when they did ask for help. Corrections staff reported increases in their use of FMI behaviors as well as in their belief and confidence in rehabilitation four months after receiving FMI training with the behavioral intervention. Covid-19 lockdowns at both prisons limited our ability to test the long term impacts of training.