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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Aydemir, Abdurrahman B. (Sabanci University); Öztek, Abdullah Selim (Ankara University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the causal effect of immigration on crime in the context of the massive influx of Syrians to Türkiye, using comprehensive data that spans all stages of the judicial process—from prosecution to incarceration—and includes information on the nativity status of both perpetrators and victims. To isolate causal effects, we employ a two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation technique, exploiting substantial exogenous variation in the migrant-to-native ratio that arises from the geographical proximity of Turkish provinces to Syrian governorates. The findings reveal a slight increase in total crime at the prosecution stage, while no significant effects are detected for criminal court cases or convictions. Moreover, natives experience increased victimization at the prosecution stage, while their involvement in criminal activities remains unchanged. In contrast, both the likelihood of committing a crime and being a victim of crime increase among immigrants. The analysis further suggests that immigrants may be crowding out natives in specific crime categories, such as smuggling. |
| Keywords: | suspects, crime, immigration, victimization |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J61 J68 K42 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17885 |
| By: | Scott Kostyshak; Neel U. Sukhatme |
| Abstract: | How much does luck matter to a criminal defendant in a jury trial? We use rich data on jury selection to causally estimate how parties who are randomly assigned a less favorable jury (as proxied by whether their attorneys exhaust their peremptory strikes) fare at trial. Our novel identification strategy is unique in that it captures variation in juror predisposition coming from variables unobserved by the econometrician but observed by attorneys. We find that criminal defendants who lose the "jury lottery" are more likely to be convicted than their similarly-situated counterparts, with a significant increase (~19 percentage points) for Black defendants. Our results suggest that a considerable number of cases would result in different verdicts if retried with new (counterfactual) random draws of the jury pool, raising concerns about the variance of justice in the criminal legal system. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2505.18431 |
| By: | Brennan, Iain (University of Hull); Rowlands, David; O'Leary, Nicola; Kujundzic, Jana |
| Abstract: | Accounts of technological advances in the area of domestic abuse have tended to focus on their role in facilitating abuse with less attention paid to how technology can be used to protect victims and deter potential abusers. Where these technologies are deterrent in nature, perpetrators must be made aware of their presence and potential. This study describes a pilot pragmatic randomised controlled trial (n=118 dyads) in a police force in England to examine how a combined the offer of audio-recording enabled domestic abuse alarms (AREDAA) and police-led deterrence messaging affects breaches of domestic abuse protection orders. Victim-abusers dyads were successfully randomised at court in 85% of cases and the deterrence message was delivered to the intervention group in 83% of cases, half of which were in court and half of which were via telephone or post. All eligible victims were offered the alarm by a police domestic abuse liaison officer, but fewer than 10% accepted the alarm. No statistically significant difference was observed in rates of order breach or domestic abuse crimes across conditions. Randomisation and delivery of deterrence messaging by police in court combined with the offer of an AREDAA alarm to victims was determined to be feasible, but intervention fidelity was dependent on perpetrator attendance at court and victim support for domestic violence protection orders, both of which were low. |
| Date: | 2025–05–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:cm7fp_v1 |
| By: | Randi Hjalmarsson; Matthew J. Lindquist; Louis-Pierre Lepage; Conrad Miller |
| Abstract: | We examine the effects of a criminal record on labor market outcomes and the mediating role of job sorting using Swedish register data. Prime-age adults with criminal records earn about 30% less than observably similar adults without records and are concentrated in specific employers and occupations. To estimate the causal effect of a criminal record, we use an event study design that compares outcomes for adults charged with an offense for the first time to matched adults who were suspected of a similar offense but not charged. Acquiring a criminal record reduces months employed by 2% and annual earnings by 5%. These negative effects are: twice as large for more serious or subsequent charges, not driven by job displacement or incapacitation, and not mitigated by automatic record expungement, which typically occurs 5 or 10 years after case disposition. We classify firms by their propensity to hire workers with criminal records, holding suspected offense history fixed. A criminal record reduces employment at firms classified as less likely to hire workers with criminal records, increases employment at other firms, and decreases monthly wages across all firm types. Firm propensity to hire workers with criminal records varies substantially---even within industries---and is linked to firm size and managers' prior exposure to people with records. Leveraging manager moves across small firms, we find that when a firm hires a new manager with greater prior exposure to people with criminal records, it hires more people with records, with no detectable effect on productivity. |
| JEL: | J30 J6 J71 K42 M51 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33865 |
| By: | Patrice Bougette (Université Côte d'Azur; GREDEG CNRS); Oliver Budzinski (Technische Universität Ilmenau); Frédéric Marty (Université Côte d'Azur, France; GREDEG CNRS) |
| Abstract: | Digital platforms, ecosystems, and R&D-intensive sectors pose distinctive challenges for merger control. In these fast-evolving markets, shaped by technological change and shifting competitive dynamics, traditional ex-ante reviews often fall short in anticipating long-term outcomes. This paper proposes a multi-step merger control model that includes a mechanism for remedy revision, allowing authorities to adjust behavioral commitments during their implementation. By embedding structured flexibility into merger decisions, our approach enables remedies to evolve in response to market reconfigurations, strategic conduct, or regulatory insights. The framework aims to ensure that remedies remain proportionate, effective, and legally predictable. By bridging ex-ante assessment and ex-post adaptation, it offers a policy instrument better suited to the uncertainties of dynamic competition. |
| Keywords: | Merger control, merger remedies, dynamic competition, competition policy uncertainties, innovation, digital markets, mergers & acquisitions, merger waves |
| JEL: | K21 L12 L13 L41 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2025-22 |
| By: | Crawford, Ben |
| Abstract: | This critical survey reviews long standing debates between the ‘entity’, ‘contractarian’ and ‘stakeholder’ theories of the corporation. These perspectives are shown to obscure the legal structuring power corporate law confers on the owners of capital, rewriting corporate property relations in terms of managerial interest intermediation, contractual voluntarism, or stakeholder ‘property’ rights, respectively. Marxist analysis and the perspective of workers and labour law are utilized to show the limitations of these debates and emphasize the constitutive role of class relations in corporate law. From this perspective, the dominant theories fail to deal with fundamental characteristics of the modern corporation: the shifting of risk, the exercise of control without liability, and patterns of hierarchy beyond the firm. New perspectives emerging from the ‘Law and Political Economy’ movement in the US, in particular Katherina Pistor’s analysis of the ways in which capital is ‘coded’ in law to the advantage of elites (The Code of Capital) are more promising. What Pistor brings out is twofold. Firstly, the critical role of private law rules in the core ‘modules’ which underpin capital. Secondly, the relative autonomy with which elites are able to utilize these rules to enhance and protect their wealth. Yet Pistor ignores the labour relationship and the class dimensions of the code of capital in her analysis. The survey concludes with reflections on the limits to legal reform of corporate law, and directions for future research bringing together analysis of the code of capital and Marxist perspectives. |
| JEL: | L20 L22 K31 |
| Date: | 2025–05–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128029 |
| By: | Maurizio Bussolo; Jonah Matthew Rexer; Lynn Hu |
| Abstract: | Legal institutions play an important role in shaping gender equality in economic domains, from inheritance to labor markets. But where do gender equal laws come from? Using cross-country data on social norms and legal equality, this paper investigates the socio- cultural roots of gender inequity in the legal system and its implications for female labor force participation. To identify the impact of social norms, the analysis uses an empirical strategy that exploits pre-modern differences in ancestral patriarchal culture as an instrument for present-day gender norms. The findings show that ancestral patriarchal culture is a strong predictor of contemporary norms, and conservative social norms are associated with more gender inequality in the de jure legal framework, the de facto implementation of laws, and the labor market. The paper presents evidence for a political selection mechanism linking norms to laws: countries with more conservative norms elect political leaders who are more hostile to gender equality, who then pass less progressive legislation. The results highlight the cultural roots and political drivers of legalized gender inequality. |
| Date: | 2025–05–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11135 |
| By: | Alejandro Herrera-Caicedo; Jessica Jeffers; Elena Prager |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether common leadership, defined as two firms sharing executives or board directors, contributes to collusion. Using an explicit measure of labor market collusion from unsealed court evidence, we find that the probability of collusion between two firms increases by 12 percentage points after the onset of common leadership, compared to a baseline rate of 1.2 percent in the absence of common leaders. These results are not driven by closeness of product or labor market competition. Our findings are consistent with the increasing attention toward common leadership under Clayton Act Section 8. |
| JEL: | K21 L4 L41 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33866 |
| By: | Mark Glick (University of Utah); Gabriel A. Lozada (University of Utah); Darren Bush (University of Houston Law Center) |
| Abstract: | Antitrust has adopted a normative economic theory based on maximizing economic surplus. The theory originates with Marshall but was introduced into antitrust as the Consumer Welfare Standard by Judge Robert Bork, and survives today in virtually every industrial organization textbook. This persistence is unwarranted. Welfare economists abandoned it several decades ago because the theory is inconsistent, and we review those inconsistencies. Moreover, welfare economists and moral philosophers have shown that the theory is biased in favor of wealthy individuals and corporations—the very powers the antitrust law is supposed to regulate. Finally, behavioral economists and psychologists have shown that the model of human behavior behind the economic surplus theory is simplistic and often in conflict with actual human behavior. We argue that antitrust should be brought into alignment with modern welfare economics. We also discuss how the New Brandeis Movement's proposal to replace the consumer welfare standard with the protecting competition standard could be developed to accomplish this goal. |
| Keywords: | Antitrust; consumer surplus; equivalent variation; compensating variation; cost-benefit analysis; Kaldor criterion and Hicks criterion; altruism; income inequality; rationality assumption; well-being; antitrust standards. |
| JEL: | K21 L40 D60 D61 D63 D90 |
| Date: | 2024–12–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp231 |
| By: | Sardoschau, Sulin (Humboldt University Berlin); Gulino, Giorgio (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Masera, Federico (University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | How does media coverage of minorities affect their rule compliance? Using data from 800, 000 random audits at supermarket self-checkouts in Italy, we show that heightened refugee media coverage reduces under-reporting of items among shoppers born in major refugee-source countries, but not other migrants or natives. The effect is concentrated in the seven days following media exposure and is strongest when coverage is negative or highlights criminality. Results are not driven by changes in customer composition or perceived audit risk. Instead, our findings suggest that public scrutiny prompts minorities to counter negative stereotypes by increasing their compliance. |
| Keywords: | crime, identity, refugees, immigration, media, threat |
| JEL: | D74 J15 D83 Z10 D72 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17888 |
| By: | Barbosa, Daniel AC (University of Oxford); Fetzer, Thiemo (University of Warwick); Soto-Vieira, Caterina (London School of Economics); Souza, Pedro CL (Queen Mary University) |
| Abstract: | We provide experimental evidence that using body-worn cameras (BWCs) for police monitoring improves police-citizen interactions. Dispatches with BWCs show a 61.2% decrease in police use of force and a 47.0% reduction in negative interactions, including handcuff use and arrests. The use of BWCs also improves the quality of officers’ record from the dispatches. The rate of incomplete reports dropped by 5.9%, which is accompanied by a 69% increase in the notification of domestic violence. We explore various mechanisms that explain why BWCs work and show that the results are consistent with the police changing their behavior in the presence of cameras. Our results stand in contrast with previous experimental literature which used coarser designs and indicated muted or null body-worn camera effects on use of force. Replicating those designs, our data also finds attenuated effects. Overall, our results show that the use of BWCs de-escalates conflicts. |
| Keywords: | police ; use of force ; technology ; field experiment JEL Codes: C93 ; D73 ; D74 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1560 |
| By: | Joshua S. Gans |
| Abstract: | The canonical example of unprotected speech—falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre—presumes such an act inevitably causes harmful panic. This paper challenges that presumption through a game-theoretic analysis of evacuation dynamics. I model a theatre as an N × M grid where rational patrons navigate spatial constraints while evacuating. Strategic conflicts arise only when patrons are equidistant from exits, creating localized “clash games” that admit multiple equilibria, including numerous pure-strategy equilibria that achieve zero-collision evacuations. Using global games methodology, I show that strategic uncertainty uniquely selects an equilibrium, where those entering from rows have precedence over those already in aisles. However, introducing a panic mechanism based on accumulated waiting time reveals a tension: the strategically optimal East-priority equilibrium proves most vulnerable to behavioral breakdown, while the alternating equilibrium exhibits superior robustness to panic. These findings suggest that whether false alarms cause harmful disorder depends critically on the interaction between spatial geometry, strategic behavior, and psychological limits—not merely on the alarm itself. |
| JEL: | C72 D61 K42 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33852 |