The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Francesco Drago,
Roberto Galbiati and
Francesco Sobbrio
No 6826, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo
Abstract:
We study voters’ response to criminal justice policies by exploiting a natural experiment. The Italian collective pardon, promoted and implemented by the national government in 2006, unexpectedly released about one third of the prison population. The collective pardon law created idiosyncratic incentives to recidivate across pardoned individuals. Municipalities where resident pardoned individuals had a higher incentive to recidivate experienced a higher recidivism rate. We show that in those municipalities voters “punished” the incumbent national government in the 2008 parliamentary elections. In particular, our estimates suggest that - in an average municipality – an additional crime by pardoned individuals led to a drop of 272 votes (1.77% of eligible voters) for the incumbent national government relative to the opposition coalition. We also provide evidence of newspapers being more likely to report crime news involving pardoned individuals and of voters hardening their views on the incumbent national government's ability to control crime. Our findings indicate that voters keep politicians accountable by conditioning their vote on the perceived effects of public policies.
Keywords: accountability; retrospective voting; natural experiment; crime; recidivism; media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
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https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6826.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2020) 
Working Paper: The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2019) 
Working Paper: The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2019) 
Working Paper: The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2017) 
Working Paper: The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2017) 
Working Paper: The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2017) 
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