Research

This paper examines how incarceration and probation shape community crime rates with 20 years of administrative court records from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I estimate causal effects by instrumenting for a criminal defendant's sentence with the preferences of a randomly assigned judge. I extend the canonical randomized judge design framework to incorporate effects generated along the intensive margin of sentence durations. This framework allows me to distinguish between effects to the marginally incarcerated defendant from effects to non-marginal defendants. Empirically, I find that sentencing effects are driven by extensions in the duration of incarceration, with one additional year preventing an estimated 17\% of defendant reconvictions and an additional 4\% of neighbor convictions during the subsequent five years. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that spillover effects are driven by violent felony offenders, indicating that incapacitating high-risk offenders generates additional social benefits in the neighborhood.

The United States is one of the few OECD countries to pay individuals to donate blood plasma and is the most generous in terms of remuneration. The opening of a local blood plasma center represents a positive, prospective income shock for would-be donors. Using detailed data on the location of blood plasma centers in the US and two complementary difference-indifferences research designs, we study the impact of these centers on crime outcomes. Our findings indicate that the opening of a plasma center in a city leads to a 12% drop in the crime rate, an effect driven primarily by property and drug-related offenses. A within-city design confirms these findings, highlighting large crime drops in neighborhoods close to a newly opened plasma center. The crime-reducing effects of plasma donation income are particularly pronounced in less affluent areas, underscoring the financial channel as the primary mechanism behind these results. This study further posits that the perceived severity of plasma center sanctions against substance use, combined with the financial channel, significantly contributes to the observed decline in drug possession incidents. 

Raising a child with a disability places additional demands on families and affects how parents participate in the labor market. This paper quantifies these effects in Switzerland, a context with short parental leave, costly childcare, and generous disability insurance. Using linked administrative data on all births from 1990 to 2020, we show that mothers of children with disabilities face sizable and persistent penalties in both employment and income. Fathers, while not reducing employment, adjust by switching to more flexible but lower-paying jobs, resulting in measurable earnings losses. At the household level, much of the lost labor income is offset by disability insurance. The results provide new evidence that child disabilities not only amplify maternal penalties but also induce important labor market adjustments among fathers.