IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16528.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Impacts of Reducing Felony Convictions

Author

Listed:
  • Agan, Amanda

    (Cornell University)

  • Garin, Andrew

    (Carnegie Mellon University)

  • Koustas, Dmitri

    (University of Chicago)

  • Mas, Alexandre

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Yang, Crystal S.

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

We study the labor market impacts of retroactively reducing felonies to misdemeanors in San Joaquin County, CA, where criminal justice agencies implemented Proposition 47 reductions in a quasi-random order, without requiring input or action from affected individuals. Linking records of reductions to administrative tax data, we find employment benefits for individuals who (likely) requested their reduction, consistent with selection, but no benefits among the larger subset of individuals whose records were reduced proactively. A field experiment notifying a subset of individuals about their proactive reduction also shows null results, implying that lack of awareness is unlikely to explain our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Agan, Amanda & Garin, Andrew & Koustas, Dmitri & Mas, Alexandre & Yang, Crystal S., 2023. "Labor Market Impacts of Reducing Felony Convictions," IZA Discussion Papers 16528, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16528
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16528.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarah K. S. Shannon & Christopher Uggen & Jason Schnittker & Melissa Thompson & Sara Wakefield & Michael Massoglia, 2017. "The Growth, Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People With Felony Records in the United States, 1948–2010," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(5), pages 1795-1818, October.
    2. Holzer, Harry J & Raphael, Steven & Stoll, Michael A, 2006. "Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks, and the Racial Hiring Practices of Employers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(2), pages 451-480, October.
    3. Pager, Devah & Western, Bruce & Bonikowski, Bart, 2009. "Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 4469, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    5. 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.
    6. Amanda Agan & Sonja Starr, 2018. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 191-235.
    7. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    8. Zoë Cullen & Will Dobbie & Mitchell Hoffman, 2023. "Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 103-150.
    9. Damon Jones & David Molitor & Julian Reif, 2019. "What do Workplace Wellness Programs do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 1747-1791.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Osborne Jackson & Riley Sullivan, 2020. "The Impact of Felony Larceny Thresholds on Crime in New England," New England Public Policy Center Research Report 87612, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Ariel J. Binder & John Bound, 2019. "The Declining Labor Market Prospects of Less-Educated Men," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 163-190, Spring.
    3. Allison Dwyer Emory, 2019. "Unintended Consequences: Protective State Policies and the Employment of Fathers with Criminal Records," Working Papers wp19-04-ff, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    4. Pinghui Wu, 2022. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Labor Force Exit: The Case of US Prime-Age Men," Working Papers 22-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    5. Melo, Vitor & Rocha, Hugo Vaca Pereira & Sigaud, Liam & Warren, Patrick L. & Gaddis, S. Michael, 2024. "Understanding Discrimination in College Admissions: A Field Experiment," SocArXiv 5ctms, Center for Open Science.
    6. Amanda Y. Agan & Michael D. Makowsky, 2023. "The Minimum Wage, EITC, and Criminal Recidivism," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(5), pages 1712-1751.
    7. Sabia, Joseph J. & Dave, Dhaval & Alotaibi, Fawaz & Rees, Daniel I., 2024. "The effects of recreational marijuana laws on drug use and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    8. Melo, Vitor & Sigaud, Liam, 2024. "Right-to-Work Laws and Labor Market Discrimination: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Working Papers 12375, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    9. Darolia, Rajeev & Mueser, Peter & Cronin, Jacob, 2021. "Labor market returns to a prison GED," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Osborne Jackson, 2019. "Punishment and Crime: The Impact of Felony Conviction on Criminal Activity," Working Papers 20-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    11. Siwach, Garima, 2017. "Criminal background checks and recidivism: Bounding the causal impact," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 74-85.
    12. Dylan Minor & Nicola Persico & Deborah M. Weiss, 2018. "Criminal background and job performance," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-49, December.
    13. Joseph J. Sabia & Taylor Mackay & Thanh Tam Nguyen & Dhaval M. Dave, 2018. "Do Ban the Box Laws Increase Crime?," NBER Working Papers 24381, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Anthony Edo & Nicolas Jacquemet & Constantine Yannelis, 2019. "Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 349-376, March.
    15. Steven Raphael, 2014. "The New Scarlet Letter? Negotiating the U.S. Labor Market with a Criminal Record," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number nsc.
    16. Magnus Lofstrom & Steven Raphael, 2016. "Crime, the Criminal Justice System, and Socioeconomic Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 103-126, Spring.
    17. Amanda Agan & Sonja Starr, 2016. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment," Working Papers 598, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    18. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    19. Geert Mesters & Victor van der Geest & Catrien Bijleveld, 2014. "Crime, Employment and Social Welfare: an Individual-level Study on Disadvantaged Males," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-091/III, Tinbergen Institute.
    20. Siwach, Garima, 2018. "Unemployment shocks for individuals on the margin: Exploring recidivism effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 231-244.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    crime; labor markets;

    JEL classification:

    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • K0 - Law and Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp16528. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.