Action or Distraction? Assessing the Impact of Post-2020 Police Use of Force Reforms in American Cities
by Vineet Chovatia
Abstract
Between 2013 and 2024, police killed 13,468 people in the United States. Low-income communities of color, who are disproportionately targeted, bear the brunt of this violence. This reality reflects a legacy rooted in a deeply racist history that continues to shape American policing today. In the wake of regular, highly-publicized killings of unarmed Black and Brown Americans and large-scale social movements advocating for police reform, police departments in many American cities implemented a range of reforms over the course of the 21st century. We use data on the adoption of seven of these reforms along with police shootings and killings data from 94 of America’s largest cities to construct fixed effects difference in differences models that estimate the effect of these policies individually and in combination on police shootings and killings. Our findings suggest that chokehold bans, de-escalation policies, and comprehensive reporting reforms are associated with reductions in police shootings when implemented together while findings with regards to police killings are more mixed, but indicate that combinations of these policies are associated with reductions in killings as well.
Professor Michelle P. Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C23, K42, K14
Keywords: Police Use of Force; Fixed Effect Difference in Differences; Post-2020 Police Reforms
A Two-Stage Analysis Considering Gun Theft & Overall Crime: Evidence from Child Access Prevention Laws
by Ronan Brew
Abstract
Child Access Prevention Laws (CAP) came to prominence in the early 1990s in the wake of the highest
recorded rate of overall and adolescent firearm deaths seen in the United States at that time, placing
mandatory firearm storage requirements on adults living in a home with children. While the primary – and
perhaps sole – intention behind these policies are to prevent adolescent gun death, I contend CAP laws have
the added function of reducing the rate of firearms stolen from homes due to the legal incentives against
improper firearm storage. In the first of a two-stage analysis, CAP laws are proven to substantially reduce
the rate of household firearm theft based on the ascending stringency of different CAP law storage
requirements. The scope of the study is then widened in the second stage of analysis, where I demonstrate
the overall impact illicitly-obtained firearms have on predicting increased firearm homicides.
Professor John DeSimone, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C23, K00, K42
The Case for Clemency: Differential Impacts of Pretrial Detention on Case and Crime Outcomes
by George Rateb
Abstract
About half-million of individuals in US jails are detained pretrial while legally presumed
innocent. Using data on quasi-randomly assigned bail judges in the third-largest court system in
the U.S., we study the impact of pretrial detention on defendants’ court and crime outcomes
between 2008 and 2012. We supplement our primary analysis to document patterns on bail
amounts and how they differentially impact Black defendants relative to their white and Hispanic
counterparts. Instrumental variable estimates suggest that pretrial detention increases the
likelihood of being found guilty, mainly driven by the uptake of guilty pleas, especially for
minorities. By linking court and jail data, we provide mechanistic evidence that jail time is
positively correlated with the uptake of these guilty pleas. To the best of our knowledge, these
findings have not been empirically documented due to a lack of previous data availability.
Professor Bocar Ba, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C26; J15; K14
Hedonic Pricing in the Sneaker Resale Market
By Kevin Ma and Matthew Treiber
This paper explores the secondary resale market for high-end and limited-edition sneakers, specifically analyzing the determinants that affect what value sneakers trade for in the secondary market. While it is common knowledge that the sneaker resale market is a thriving and active secondary market, there is little to no empirical research about what exactly causes such sneakers to sell for exorbitant prices in the resale market. The study utilizes a hedonic pricing approach to investigate the determinants of sneaker resale price. We use a dataset of sneaker resale transactions from the online marketplace StockX between the years of 2016 and 2020 as the basis for our research. After analyzing the results, we have determined that the amount of “hype” that surrounds a sneaker as well as supply scarcity are statistically significant factors when determining the resale price premium a particular sneaker commands in the secondary market. This work adds to the sparse literature on the sneaker resale industry and brings an econometrics-approach to determining the price a given pair of sneakers commands in the resale market.
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Advisors: Professor Kyle Jurado, Professor Michelle Connolly, Professor Grace Kim| JEL Codes: C2, C20, J19
“Behind the Scenes:” An Empirical Investigation of Broadway Show Success Factors
By Alexander Sanfilippo
This paper analyzes the impact of financial and objective factors on Broadway show success. The analysis differs from previous literature through its exclusive focus on Broadway productions that open between June and February, so defined as the “Pre-Season,” as well as its attempts to establish causality through an instrumental variable regression. Two other methods of analysis are also used in accordance with past research: an ordinary least squares regression and relative risks hazard model. The results demonstrate the significant impact of first week attendance on long-term show success and reiterate the essential function of the Tony Awards in Broadway survival. This paper also introduces the positive impact of ticket pricing on show survival. Discussion on the implications surrounding the difficulty of obtaining show-specific budget data concludes the paper, arguing that this should be an area of future focus and collaboration between researchers and Broadway producers.
Advisors: Professor James Roberts, Professor Brad Rogers, Professor Kent Kimbrough| JEL Codes: C4, C41, C26
The Impact of Violence in Mexico on Education and Labor Outcomes: Do Conditional Cash Transfers Have a Mitigating Effect?
By Hayley Jordan Barton
This research explores the potential mitigating effect of Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program, Oportunidades, on the education and labor impacts of increased homicide rates. Panel data models are combined with a difference-in-differences approach to compare children and young adults who receive cash transfers with those who do not. Results are very sensitive to specification, but Oportunidades participation is shown to be positively associated with educational attainment regardless of homicide increases. Homicides are associated with decreases in likelihood of school enrollment and compulsory education completion; however, they also correspond with increases in educational attainment, with a larger effect for Oportunidades non-recipients.
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Advisors: Professor Charles Becker, and Professor Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: C23; D15; I20; I38; J24
Hedonic Modeling of Singapore’s Resale Public Housing Market
By Jiakun Xu
The large-scale, high-density public housing market in Singapore invites hedonic analysis, due to its homogeneity in structure quality across all neighborhoods. This paper builds a time-dummy hedonic regression model incorporating geospatial features for a large dataset of resale transactions from 2000 to 2016. Significant anticipatory price effects are found for new subway stations, which peak at two years before station opening. A hedonic price index suggests that affordability was a problem during the sustained period of property price inflation from 2011 to 2013. District-level analysis shows evidence of increasing rent gradients, wealth disparities, and “lottery” effects in asset growth. I discuss the potential contributions of these insights to wealth and equity considerations in public policy
design.
Data available upon request. Email dus_asst@econ.duke.edu
Advisors: Charles Becker, Tracy Falba | JEL Codes: C21, R3, R31, R38, R41
The Effect of Federal Regulations on the Outcomes of Auctions for Oil and Gas Leaseholds
By Artur Shikhaleev
This thesis attempts to analyze the impact of the differences in regulatory frameworks that govern state-owned and federally-owned lands on the outcomes of auctions for oil and natural gas leaseholds in the state of New Mexico. The analysis tries to isolate the effect of ownership by controlling for auction structure, leasehold characteristics, and prices of underlying resources. Given past research, the hypothesis is that stricter regulations carry a heavier cost to buyers, so the expectation is that federally-owned leaseholds, which are more regulated, are traded at a discount to state-owned leaseholds. However, the result of this thesis is contradictory to the hypothesis. The conclusion is that stricter regulations do not lead to a discounted auction price for an oil and gas leasehold.
Advisor: James Roberts, Kent Kimbrough | JEL Codes: C12, C21, Q35, Q58 | Tagged: Auction, Education, environment, federal, natural gas, Oil, Regulation, State
Understanding Financial Incentive Health Initiatives: The Impact of the Janani Suraksha Yojana Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Institutional Delivery Rates and Out-of- Pocket Health Expenditure
By Ritika Jain
Demand-side financing is a policy tool used by nations to incentivize utilization of public institutions, and India’s Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is one of the largest such financial incentive programs in the world. The program pays eligible pregnant women to deliver their babies in health institutions partnered with the program. This paper studies the impact of the JSY on changes in mothers’ health-seeking behavior to deliver in-facility and on the out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) for delivery that they incur. Using data from the most recent wave of India’s District-Level Household Survey conducted in 2007-08, this paper finds that the overall introduction of the program in districts in India does not lead to significant changes in institutional delivery or out-ofpocket expenditure outcomes. Further analysis of subpopulations shows that marginalized populations are responsive to JSY introduction in their district with increased probability of delivering in-facility of 1.10 – 3.40 percentage points. Lastly, results show that receiving JSY payments leads to a 1.34 percentage point increase in the probability of incurring OOPE, but a 4.81 percent decrease in the amount of OOPE incurred. The JSY is helping to reduce overall out-of-pocket spending on deliveries. However, the majority of program benefits are not reaching poor pregnant women as the JSY aims, communicating the need for improvement in population targeting.
Advisor: Alison Hagy, Kent Kimbrough, Manoj Mohanan | JEL Codes: C22, I12, I18 | Tagged: Conditional Cash Transfer, Demand-side Financing, Difference-in-difference-in-differences, Difference-in-differences, Healthcare Reform, Maternal Health
Exceeding the Threshold: Analysis of Public Information Transfer using Instrumental Variables
By Gabrielle Inder
This paper examines how information transfer about contamination levels found at brownfield sites capitalizes into nearby property values. More specifically, a hedonic model is used to test the impact on housing transaction prices when a binary measure (i.e. exceeding a threshold or not) or a continuous measure (i.e. chemical levels) is used. In the analysis, I exploit the variation in the contaminant thresholds, caused by regulatory conditions defined by the state of Massachusetts, holding the contaminant level constant. As thresholds are tied to neighborhood attributes in areas surrounding brownfields, threshold exceedance is potentially correlated to unobserved factors that impact housing values. An instrumental variables approach is used to create variation in threshold
exceedance through the use of an instrument that measures the presence to underground aquifers. After instrumenting for threshold exceedance, my estimates indicate that a 10.8% decrease in housing values occurs when a contaminant threshold is exceeded, while the continuous measures of toxicity indicate a negative but insignificant effect. These findings suggest that policy makers should consider information conveyance when creating policies to inform homeowners of pollution presence, as improved information provision may increase public awareness about local environmental concerns.
Advisor: Christopher Timmins, Michelle Connolly, Lala Ma | JEL Codes: C26, Q5, Q53 | Tagged: Brownfields, Hedonic Analysis, Housing Markets, Instrumental Variables, Pollution
