The Impact of Incarceration on Employment, Earnings, and Tax Filing

IF 6.6 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Econometrica Pub Date : 2025-03-29 DOI:10.3982/ECTA22028

Andrew Garin, Dmitri Koustas, Carl McPherson, Samuel Norris, Matthew Pecenco, Evan K. Rose, Yotam Shem-Tov, Jeffrey Weaver

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Abstract

We study the effect of incarceration on wages, self-employment, and taxes and transfers in North Carolina and Ohio using two quasi-experimental research designs: discontinuities in sentencing guidelines and random assignment to judges. Across both states, incarceration generates short-term drops in economic activity while individuals remain in prison. As a result, a year-long sentence decreases cumulative earnings over five years by 13%. Beyond five years, however, there is no evidence of lower employment, wage earnings, or self-employment in either state, as well as among defendants with no prior incarceration history. These results suggest that upstream factors, such as other types of criminal justice interactions or pre-existing labor market detachment, are more likely to be the cause of low earnings among the previously incarcerated, who we estimate would earn just $5000 per year on average if spared a prison sentence.

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监禁对就业、收入和纳税申报的影响

我们在北卡罗来纳州和俄亥俄州研究了监禁对工资、自营职业、税收和转移的影响，采用了两种准实验研究设计：量刑指南的不连续性和对法官的随机分配。在这两个州，监禁会导致经济活动在短期内下降，而个人仍在狱中。因此，一年的刑期会使五年内的累计收入减少13%。然而，在五年以上的时间里，没有证据表明在任何一个州都有较低的就业、工资收入或自营职业，也没有证据表明被告之前没有监禁史。这些结果表明，上游因素，如其他类型的刑事司法相互作用或先前存在的劳动力市场脱离，更有可能是先前被监禁者收入低的原因，我们估计，如果不被判入狱，他们平均每年只能挣5000美元。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Econometrica 社会科学-数学跨学科应用

CiteScore

11.00

自引率

3.30%

发文量

审稿时长

6-12 weeks

期刊介绍： Econometrica publishes original articles in all branches of economics - theoretical and empirical, abstract and applied, providing wide-ranging coverage across the subject area. It promotes studies that aim at the unification of the theoretical-quantitative and the empirical-quantitative approach to economic problems and that are penetrated by constructive and rigorous thinking. It explores a unique range of topics each year - from the frontier of theoretical developments in many new and important areas, to research on current and applied economic problems, to methodologically innovative, theoretical and applied studies in econometrics. Econometrica maintains a long tradition that submitted articles are refereed carefully and that detailed and thoughtful referee reports are provided to the author as an aid to scientific research, thus ensuring the high calibre of papers found in Econometrica. An international board of editors, together with the referees it has selected, has succeeded in substantially reducing editorial turnaround time, thereby encouraging submissions of the highest quality. We strongly encourage recent Ph. D. graduates to submit their work to Econometrica. Our policy is to take into account the fact that recent graduates are less experienced in the process of writing and submitting papers.