IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aei/rpaper/880075.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

'Ban the Box' measures help high-crime neighborhoods

Author

Listed:
  • Stan Veuger

    (American Enterprise Institute)

  • Daniel Shoag

Abstract

A sizable number of localities have in recent years limited the use of criminal background checks in hiring decisions, or "banned the box." Using LEHD Origin-Destination Employment and American Community Survey data, we show that these bans increased employment of residents in high-crime neighborhoods by as much as 4%. These increases are particularly large in the public sector. At the same time, we establish using job postings data that employers respond to ban-the-box measures by raising experience requirements. A perhaps unintended consequence of this is that women, who are less likely to be convicted of crimes, see their employment opportunities reduced.

Suggested Citation

  • Stan Veuger & Daniel Shoag, 2019. "'Ban the Box' measures help high-crime neighborhoods," AEI Economics Working Papers 880075, American Enterprise Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:aei:rpaper:880075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aei.org/publication/banning-the-box-consequences-of-bans-on-criminal-record-screening-in-employment-applications
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew R. Graham & Mark J. Kutzbach & Brian McKenzie, 2014. "Design Comparison of LODES and ACS Commuting Data Products," Working Papers 14-38, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Osborne Jackson & Riley Sullivan & Bo Zhao, 2017. "Reintegrating the ex-offender population in the U.S. labor market: lessons from the CORI Reform in Massachusetts," New England Public Policy Center Research Report 17-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Lundberg, Alexander & Mungan, Murat, 2022. "The effect of evidentiary rules on conviction rates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 563-576.
    3. Kaestner, Robert & Wang, Xufei, 2024. "Ban-the-box laws: Fair and effective?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Cody Tuttle, 2019. "Snapping Back: Food Stamp Bans and Criminal Recidivism," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 301-327, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Freedman, Matthew & Khanna, Shantanu & Neumark, David, 2023. "Combining rules and discretion in economic development policy: Evidence on the impacts of the California Competes Tax Credit," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    2. Kevin Credit & Zander Arnao, 2023. "A method to derive small area estimates of linked commuting trips by mode from open source LODES and ACS data," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(3), pages 709-722, March.
    3. Matthew R. Graham & Mark J. Kutzbach & Danielle H. Sandler, 2017. "Developing a Residence Candidate File for Use With Employer-Employee Matched Data," Working Papers 17-40, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    4. Steven Dieterle & Otávio Bartalotti & Quentin Brummet, 2020. "Revisiting the Effects of Unemployment Insurance Extensions on Unemployment: A Measurement-Error-Corrected Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 84-114, May.
    5. Jonathan I. Dingel & Felix Tintelnot, 2020. "Spatial Economics for Granular Settings," NBER Working Papers 27287, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dieterle, Steven & Bartalotti, Otávio C. & Brummet, Quentin O., 2016. "Revisiting the Effects of Unemployment Insurance Extensions on Unemployment: A Measurement Error-Corrected RD Approach," Staff General Research Papers Archive 3392, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Perez Perez, Jorge, 2020. "City Minimum Wages and Spatial Equilibrium Effects," SocArXiv fpx9e, Center for Open Science.
    8. Guettabi, Mouhcine & James, Alexander, 2020. "Who benefits from an oil boom? Evidence from a unique Alaskan data set," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    9. Owen, Andrew & Levinson, David M., 2015. "Modeling the commute mode share of transit using continuous accessibility to jobs," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 110-122.
    10. Dieterle, Steven & Bartalotti, Otávio C. & Brummet, Quentin O., 2016. "Revisiting the Effects of Unemployment Insurance Extensions on Unemployment: A Measurement Error-Corrected RD Approach," ISU General Staff Papers 201604210700001002, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    11. Tyndall, Justin, 2016. "Commuter Mobility and Economic Performance in US Cities," 57th Transportation Research Forum (51st CTRF) Joint Conference, Toronto, Ontario, May 1-4, 2016 319292, Transportation Research Forum.
    12. Victor Couture & Jessie Handbury, 2017. "Urban Revival in America, 2000 to 2010," NBER Working Papers 24084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Berrebi, Simon J. & Watkins, Kari E., 2020. "Who’s ditching the bus?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 21-34.
    14. Wagner, Gary A. & Rork, Jonathan C., 2023. "Does state tax reciprocity affect interstate commuting? Evidence from a natural experiment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    15. Daniel A. Hartley & Nikhil Kaza & T. William Lester, 2016. "Are America’s Inner Cities Competitive? Evidence From the 2000s," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 30(2), pages 137-158, May.
    16. Raymond Owens III & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg & Pierre-Daniel Sarte, 2020. "Rethinking Detroit," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 258-305, May.
    17. Czurylo, Todd, 2023. "The effect of tax increment financing districts on job creation in Chicago," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    18. Hope Bodenschatz & Eli Inkelas & Jeffrey P. Thompson, 2025. "Getting to Work in New England: Commuting Patterns across the Region," New England Public Policy Center Regional Brief 2025-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    19. Robert Clifford & Daniel Shoag, 2016. "“No more credit score”: employer credit check bans and signal substitution," Working Papers 16-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    20. Couture, Victor & Handbury, Jessie, 2020. "Urban revival in America," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor economics; Prison Education and Reentry;

    JEL classification:

    • A - General Economics and Teaching

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aei:rpaper:880075. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dave Adams, CIO (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeiiius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.