The Impact of Criminal Financial Sanctions: A Multistate Analysis of Survey and Administrative Data

Keith Finlay, Matthew Gross, Carl Lieberman, Elizabeth Luh and Michael Mueller-Smith

American Economic Review: Insights, 2024, vol. 6, issue 4, 490-508

Abstract: We estimate the impact of financial sanctions in the US criminal justice system, leveraging nine natural experiments in a regression discontinuity design framework across a diverse range of enforcement levels ($17–$6,000) and institutional environments. We leverage survey and administrative data to consider a variety of short- and long-term outcomes, including employment, recidivism, household expenditures, and other self-reported measures of well-being. We find robust evidence of precise null effects, including ruling out long-run impacts larger than –$391–$142 in annual earnings and −0.001–0.01 in annual convictions, with no corresponding payment increases despite salient and heterogeneous enforcement mechanisms.

JEL-codes: G51 H76 J31 K14 K41 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: The Impact of Criminal Financial Sanctions: A Multi-State Analysis of Survey and Administrative Data (2023)
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DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20230413

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