Are criminals strategic? Offender responses to drug sentencing cutoffs

Louis-Pierre Lepage

Labour Economics, 2020, vol. 66, issue C

Abstract: In many US states, punishment severity for drug offenses increases discontinuously at established quantity limits. Theory predicts that these laws create bunching of offenders at these limits and dominated regions beyond, where it ex-ante appears irrational to locate. These policies provide a novel setting to test for deterrence along a different margin that typically considered in the literature and generate new evidence on the extent to which offenders respond to incentives. Using arrest reports from 28 states and leveraging variation from quantity cutoff changes through time, I find evidence of strategic bunching by offenders in response to cutoff policies.

Keywords: Criminal justice; Sentencing; Bunching; Deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:66:y:2020:i:c:s092753712030110x

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101906

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