The Impact of Criminal Financial Sanctions: A Multi-State Analysis of Survey and Administrative Data

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

No 31581, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We estimate the impact of financial sanctions in the U.S. criminal justice system using nine distinct natural experiments across five states. These regression discontinuity designs capture a range of enforcement levels ($17–$6,000) and institutional environments, providing robust causal evidence and external validity. We leverage survey and administrative data to consider a variety of short and long-term outcomes including employment, recidivism, household expenditures, spousal spillovers, and other self-reported measures of well-being. We find consistent, robust evidence of precise null effects on the population, including ruling out long-run impacts larger than -$347–$168 in annual earnings and -0.002–0.01 in annual convictions.

JEL-codes: H72 J24 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-lma and nep-ure
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Journal Article: The Impact of Criminal Financial Sanctions: A Multistate Analysis of Survey and Administrative Data (2024)
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