Research in Progress
Below are research lines that I am currently working on. Descriptions of both works in progress and past accomplishments are provided.
Chicago Boys: Economic Liberalization and the Chilean Economy (with B. Zhahadai [working paper]
A group of Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys, moved into Chilean policymaking positions in the late 1970s. They implemented widespread free market reforms. We quantify the causal impact of these policies on the Chilean economy by applying the Synthetic Control Method. This method generates a synthetic Chile, mirroring the macroeconomic and political characteristics of the actual country, albeit without the presence of the Chicago Boys. By 2019 we show that the Chilean GDP per capita is 4012 USD higher than it would have been had the reforms not been implemented.
Covid-19 Policy and Policymaking
Mask Mandates Increased Covid-19 Deaths in Kansas (with M. Wilson) [working paper] - - PUBLISHED: Journal of Private Enterprise [link]
We ask whether face mask mandates were effective at reducing Covid-related deaths. We explore data from Kansas as local political leaders had the ability to opt out of the governor's statewide mandates. Exploiting the staggered adoption of mandates across counties across time, we estimate a difference-in-difference model. We present evidence that the adoption of a mask mandate increased the number of Covid-related deaths. In our preferred specification, two additional deaths arise every three weeks a county imposes a mask mandate. We explore threats to identification in making our causal claim and use total confirmed cases and cell phone tracking data to explore the mechanism.
Community Use of Face Masks and Covid-19: Further Evidence from State Mandates in the U.S. (with D. Kemboi) [working paper]
We replicate and extend previous, influential research on the impact of mask mandates in 2020 on the spread of Covid-19 in the U.S. While research conducted on early adopters in spring 2020 showed a reduction in the virus’s spread, we illustrate that this benefit was not replicated in the 25 later-adopting states.
Stay-at-Home Orders Were Issued Earlier in Economically Unfree States (with J. Hall) - - PUBLISHED: Southern Economic Journal [link]
Stay-at-Home orders curtailed the individual liberty of those across the United States. Governors of some states move swiftly to impose the lockdowns. Others delayed and a few even refused to implement these policies. We explore common narratives of what determines the speed of implementation, namely partisanship and virus exposure. While correlation exists, we show that the most consistent explanation for the speed of the implementation of these orders is the state’s economic freedom. It was the economically unfree states who issued Stay-at-Home orders earlier.
Do Governors Lead or Follow? Timing of Stay-at-Home Orders - - PUBLISHED: Eastern Economic Journal [link]
I investigate the timing of the Stay-at-Home orders. I use daily Google search data to track early interest in the novel Coronavirus pandemic. I ask whether governors responded to heightened interest (i.e., following) or if their decisions are independent of citizen sentiment (i.e., leading). I show that Stay-at-Home orders were initiated sooner in states that saw early, heightened interest in the virus. This suggests that governors follow voters’ opinions, preferences, and sentiments. Exploring potential heterogeneous effects, there is not a difference in the size of this effect between Republican and Democrat governors, nor is there a difference between those up for re-election in 2020 and those not. I do find that governor responsiveness is related to the state’s economic freedom and the governor’s approval rating just before the pandemic. In a novel environment without precedence, governors in the U.S. set policy in accord with voter interest.
The Impact of California's Zero Dollar Bail Policy on Crime (with J. Heflin) [working paper]
We ask whether the elimination of cash bail promotes crime. We exploit a Covid-19 related policy in California where a statewide mandate eliminated cash bail. After its relaxation, individual counties were free to continue with the policy. This created variation in the re-implementation of cash bail. We find that the elimination of cash bail leads to a small, but nonzero, increase in violent crime, but we are unable to make a decisive claim regarding its impact on property crime. We further show that it did not affect law enforcement’s clearance rate and, therefore, is likely to be a direct effect from eroding deterrence. Further, we show that the increase in violent crime is concentrated in assaults, rather than more serious felonies which were exempt from the zero cash bail policy
Three Golden Balls: Pawn Shops and Crime (with Z. Porreca and Z. Rodriguez) [working paper]
We ask what the relationship is between pawn shops and crime. The dominant narrative is that pawn shops reduce the transaction costs of crime and, consequently, promote it. We explore the alternative where pawn shops address the financial distress of those in need, which reduces the incentive to engage in crime. We exploit two distinct policies affecting access to pawn shops − severe licensing fees implemented in London in the early 1800s and state variation in the classification of pawn shops as essential businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic in spring 2020. For each, employing a difference-in-difference identification strategy, we provide evidence that restrictions to pawn shop access increases property crime.
Law and Economics (Economics of Prosecutors & Judges)
The Right to Counsel: Criminal Prosecution in 19th Century London (with Z. Porreca) [working paper]
Exploiting a novel data set of criminal trials in 19th century London, we evaluate the impact of an accused’s right to counsel on convictions. While lower-level crimes had an established history of professional representation prior to 1836, individuals accused of committing a felony did not, even though the prosecution was conducted by professional attorneys. The Prisoners’ Counsel At of 1836 remedied this and first introduced the right to counsel in common law systems. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy we identify the causal effect of defense counsel. We find the surprising result that the professionalization of the courtroom lead to an increase in the conviction rate, which we interpret as a consequence of jurors feeling that the trial became fairer. We go further and employ a topic modeling approach to the text of the transcripts to provide suggestive evidence on how the trials changed when defense counsel was fully introduced.
Do Elections Encourage Public Actors to be More Responsive? (with C. Williams) [working paper]
In the U.S. many public services are provided by individuals who are selected in local elections. The incentives created by the election mechanism are relatively understudied. One of these public actors is the prosecutor. The U.S. is unique in the world in its use of popular elections to select and retain local prosecutors. They exercise an enormous amount of discretion, and the election mechanism serves as the primary accountability tool. Critics point to voters' poor information, weak incentives to become informed, and insufficient knowledge to properly evaluate as arguments against the ability of elections to properly incentivize prosecutors to do their job well. Nevertheless, empirical research has documented important distortions in prosecutorial decision making close to election periods. This has called into question further the institution's appropriateness. Here, we ask whether elections at least encourage local prosecutors to be responsive to citizens. We design a novel field experiment where we send an information request to a randomly selected sample of offices in the country. Whether the office responds to the request is our measurement of responsiveness. We show that offices whose head is up for re-election in 2020 are more likely to respond than offices led by prosecutors not up for re-election this year. We also show that offices in states that appoint their local prosecutors are substantially less likely to respond than a matched, similar set of offices in states that use popular elections. Thus, we provide evidence that the election mechanism encourages public actors to be more responsive.
Alaska's Ban on Sentencing Bargaining [working paper] - - PUBLISHED: Contemporary Economic Policy
Plea bargaining dominates the U.S. criminal justice system and has garnered calls to reduce its prevalence. In 2013 Alaska's Attorney General acted banning a practice known as sentencing bargaining where the prosecutor negotiates with the defense over the length of the incarceration. I provide the first causal identification of this policy's impact on the plea bargaining rate. I show that the policy, by leaving open the charging discretion (in effect allowing charge bargaining), was ineffective at changing plea bargaining's prevalence across the state. Policymakers should look elsewhere for tools if they want to mitigate its rate.
Emotional Cues and Violent Behavior: Unexpected Basketball Losses Increase Incidents of Family Violence (with A. Cardazzi, B. Humphreys, and Z. Rodriguez) [working paper] - - PUBLISHED Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization [link]
Domestic violence generates long-term effects on offenders, victims, and other household members. Insight into triggers of family violence can inform policy and improve services aimed at reducing abusive behavior. We investigate potential domestic violence triggers by analyzing unexpected losses in National Basketball Association games. The literature identifies increasing in-home violence after unexpected losses in the National Football League. Combining information on referee accuracy and fatigue, we develop a unique identification strategy to explore the impact of human error on family violence following unexpected losses. Results indicate that as referees are more accurate (more rested) in unexpected losses, family violence decreases, suggesting that the ability to place blame for a loss on referees increases the likelihood of violent outbursts. Further investigation shows that these results concentrate in games where referees are less rested and betting markets were less certain of the game outcome.
Using Appellate Decisions to Evaluate the Impact of Judicial Elections (with G. DeAngelo) [working paper] - - PUBLISHED: Journal of Legal Studies [link]
We explore the relationship between judicial elections and the quality of the lower court decisions made, measured by convictions upheld upon appeal. Our work is unique in that the past research on judicial elections either focuses on special interest group distortions or criminal sentencing. We focus on appealed convictions in New York state. We show that judges who were former prosecutors perform better in criminal cases, and get even better when re-election season arises. Judges who were not prosecutors perform worse at re-election time. Our work supports a divided-effort theory of judicial incentives.
Prosecutorial Retention: Signaling by Trial (with S. Bandyopadhyay) - - PUBLISHED Journal of Public Economic Theory [link]
We examine how retention motives affect prosecutor behavior under different evaluation criteria. In particular, we analyze how prosecutors of differing capabilities respond in choosing which cases to take to trial and which to plea bargain. We show how different criteria distort the mix of cases chosen for trial and that the direction of the distortion depends crucially on the evaluation tool used. Optimal evaluation metrics are derived that combine multiple signals of performance and are shown to achieve the first-best outcome.
Queuing Up for Justice: Prosecutor Elections and Case Backlogs (with S. Bandyopadhyay) [working paper]
We evaluate case backlogs and how prosecutor re-elections affect the backlog. Our past research has relied on asymmetric information frameworks to explain distortions prosecutorial decision making - re-elections distort decision making because voters can only observed case outcomes. Others have argued that elections promote effort. Both conceptual frameworks can explain more cases taken to trial when prosecutors run for re-election. We show theoretically that the two frameworks can be differentiated by looking at backlogs. We show using data from North Carolina that backlogs grow when prosecutors run for re-election, which supports our asymmetric information argument
Informational Value of Challenging an Incumbent Prosecutor [working paper] - - PUBLISHED Southern Economic Journal [link]
In McCannon and Pruitt (JPET, 2018) we show theoretically that voters can use the decision of subordinates in a prosecutor's office choosing to challenge the boss to learn about the quality of the incumbent. I test this empirically here. I take advantage of a quasi-natural experiment in New York state where prosecutor's salaries were dramatically increased. In an asymmetric information environment, we showed that voters if they are actively responding to new information in their voting, then the increased salary lowers the expected cost of challenging the incumbent. This worsens the informational value of the contest leading to improved incumbency advantage. Using election data in New York state, I show that incumbent prosecutor's margin of victory grows and the probability of winning re-election increases after the salary increase. The consequence is that voters are not passive, but actively updating beliefs and voting accordingly.
Debundling Accountability: Prosecutor and Public Defender Elections in Florida [working paper] - - PUBLISHED: Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice
In the United States, prosecutors and many judges are selected in popular elections. For the most part, the third actor, the public defender, is appointed. An important exception is Florida where the head public defenders are elected. I collect data on case processing in the state and show that close to re-election time, the acquittal rate increases and more cases are plea bargained.
Bargaining in the Shadow of the Trial? Deaths of Law Enforcement Officials and the Plea Bargaining Process (with D. Bonneau)[working paper]
Economists who study plea bargaining start with the assumption that the default outcome if bargaining fails is a jury trial. This framework is known as "bargaining in the shadow of the trial". Criminologists and legal scholars question this framework's validity. We provide the first test of this conceptual framework. Collecting data on every individual arresting in the state of Florida between 2004 and 2017, we can track cases as charges are filed, dropped, plea bargained, and taken to trial. This allows us to estimate the difference between sentences received via plea bargaining and trial convictions. Our identification strategy is to consider deaths of law enforcement officials, which we argue is a tragic event affecting a local community. This makes salient the importance of violence and crime and these community members make up the potential jury pool. We consider cases that were already in process at the time in the county of the death as those treated by this quasi-natural experiment. Using a difference-in-difference strategy, we show that the plea discount diminishes with these deaths, which is the direct prediction of the bargaining in the shadow of the trial framework. This effect is larger for serious felonies, for gun-related deaths, for deaths associated with more Google searching for law enforcement officials, for cases closer to their trial, and for deaths that result in road dedications. Furthermore, we show that the deaths also lead to more cases going to trial. Thus, we are the first to establish a causal effect of changes in the anticipated jury behavior and the plea bargaining process.
last updated January 2024