Highlighted Publications




 

This study asks whether court-appointed attorneys achieve different outcomes for low-income defendants based on whether they share the same race. Using administrative data on more than 17,000 misdemeanor cases in Travis County, Texas, the authors examine quasi-random attorney assignment to compare results for Black and White defendants. They find that Black defendants represented by White attorneys are 14–16 percent more likely to have their charges dismissed and 15–26 percen

The authors ask whether state recreational cannabis legalization reduces long-standing racial disparities in the criminal legal system. Using national data from 2007–2019 on arrests, prison admissions, hospitalizations, crimes, and police staffing, they track outcomes for White and Black adults before and after legalization. They find large drops in cannabis possession arrests (down 62% for White adults and 51% for Black adults) and cannabis sales arrests (down 44% and 49%).

This study asks whether sending people who commit financial crimes to prison reduces future offending and whether these sentences also discourage their coworkers from committing similar crimes. The authors use detailed administrative data from Finland, linking court records, workplace information, and criminal histories. Using random assignment of judges to identify causal effects, they find that a prison sentence reduces a defendant’s likelihood of reoffending by about 43 pe

This study asked whether limiting malpractice payouts in North Carolina affected how doctors make childbirth decisions, especially the use of cesarean deliveries. Using hospital discharge data from North Carolina and Florida from 2008 to 2017, the authors compared outcomes before and after North Carolina’s 2011 cap on noneconomic damages. They found that c-section rates fell by about 5 percent on average, and nearly 7 percent five years after the law took effect. Doctors also

This study asks whether the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges , which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, increased mortgage demand among same-sex couples. Using data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act covering nearly all U.S. mortgage applications between 1998 and 2019, the authors compared same-sex and different-sex couples before and after the ruling. They found that mortgage demand by same-sex couples rose by about 12% in states newly affected b