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JOB MARKET PAPER
Violence against women (VAW) is highly prevalent worldwide, yet perpetrators are rarely held accountable. This paper examines whether increased media visibility of such violence affects how sexual and intimate partner violence cases are processed by the criminal justice system. It combines novel administrative microdata on criminal cases with high-frequency data on daily TV news broadcasts in France. Leveraging the quasi-random timing of TV news stories about VAW relative to case processing, I find that news coverage of VAW leads to a 2.3% increase in the prosecution rate but no increase in the conviction rate in the week following coverage. This shift in prosecutions appears to be driven both by heightened awareness or emotional reactions and by prosecutors’ responses to increased public scrutiny and accountability. This occurs in a context where prosecutors largely determine case outcomes: they dismiss nearly 80% of cases at the outset, while most prosecuted cases eventually result in conviction. Consistent with this interpretation, I find that cases prosecuted following news coverage of VAW are just as likely to result in conviction as those prosecuted on other days. Consequently, increased media visibility enables more viable cases to reach trial without influencing judges’ rulings, thereby strengthening the overall judicial response to VAW.
Propensity to dismiss cases of sexual or intimate partner violence following TV news coverage of crimes against women
Presented at the PSE Labor and Public Economics seminar, PSE Applied Economics Seminar, Paris Nanterre seminar of Law, Institutions and Economics, DeFiPP Seminar of Namur University, Paris Cité LIRAES Economics seminar, IEB Work-in-Progress seminar of University of Barcelona, SOFI Brown bag seminar of Stockholm University, SITE Seminar of Stockholm School of Economics, 19th Doctorissimes PhD Conference, 3rd IEB Workshop on Public Policies of University of Barcelona, 40èmes Journées de Microéconomie Appliquée, Inaugural Conference of the French Association of Population Economists, 35th Conference of the European Association of Labour Economists, 38th Annual Conference of the European Society for Population Economics, 42nd Annual Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics, 16th Transatlantic Workshop on the Economics of Crime, 2nd Workshop on Violence Against Women, 10th Annual Conference of the French Association of Law and Economics.
PUBLICATIONS
Sexual violence and its underreporting are major social problems. This study examines the determinants of reporting recent sexual violence to the police, using data from the French victimization survey conducted annually from 2007 to 2019 on a large, nationally representative sample. This article shows that the propensity to report is significantly higher among victims with low socioeconomic status and those who sustained physical injuries. Leveraging unique data on the reasons for not reporting, the study analyzes the mechanisms through which these two structural factors operate on the reporting process. The lower reporting rate among victims of higher socioeconomic status is better explained by their greater awareness of the low likelihood of a successful trial, rather than by a fear of social stigma. Conversely, the significant impact of physical injuries on reporting stems more from greater alignment with the “classic rape” stereotype than from better prospects for winning a case based on concrete evidence.
Presented at the Paris Nanterre Workshop on Gender Issues and Development, 2nd Gender and Economics Workshop at Luxembourg University, 71st Congress of the French Economic Association.
Propensity to report sexual violence to the police by sociodemographic and assault characteristics
SELECTED WORK IN PROGRESS
Effects of a new work organization in the home care sector: Evidence from a randomized experiment in France
with Léa Toulemon, Audrey Rain, Delphine Roy and Thomas Breda
The impact of juvenile incarceration on their education and labor market outcomes: Evidence from French administrative data
with Camille Hémet, Laura Khoury, Manon Garrouste, Nina Guyon and Léa Dousset
Prevalence and reporting of domestic violence: study of a “one-door” system in Nepal
with Andréa Renk and Manasi Chhabra
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