IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/mygch.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Marshalsea Underwater: Natural Disasters and Legal Debt Defaults

Author

Listed:
  • Singh, Tejendra Pratap

Abstract

National estimates suggest that a large fraction of the United States population is unable to cover modest emergency expenses using liquid savings. At the same time, natural disasters are increasing in frequency, intensity, and duration with ever-expanding destruction potential. Using exposure to natural disasters, I examine if defendants are more likely to default on their legal financial obligations. Constructing a novel dataset of defendants with traffic citations in Oklahoma, I find that natural disaster exposure increases the likelihood that the defendant defaults on their legal debt. The effect appears immediately after the disaster exposure and persists for more than 100 days following the natural disaster. I do not uncover significant heterogeneity in legal debt default likelihood by defendant characteristics, potentially due to a lack of statistical power. These estimates suggest that interventions designed to provide reprieve for legal debt repayment may alleviate defendants getting entangled in the criminal justice system, a phenomenon that is extremely costly economically and socially.

Suggested Citation

  • Singh, Tejendra Pratap, 2024. "The Marshalsea Underwater: Natural Disasters and Legal Debt Defaults," OSF Preprints mygch, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:mygch
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/mygch
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/66c35efb8e907d0f8b5da69a/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/mygch?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tatyana Deryugina & Laura Kawano & Steven Levitt, 2018. "The Economic Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Its Victims: Evidence from Individual Tax Returns," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 202-233, April.
    2. Jeffrey A. Groen & Mark J. Kutzbach & Anne E. Polivka, 2020. "Storms and Jobs: The Effect of Hurricanes on Individuals’ Employment and Earnings over the Long Term," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(3), pages 653-685.
    3. Michal Kolesár & Christoph Rothe, 2018. "Inference in Regression Discontinuity Designs with a Discrete Running Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2277-2304, August.
    4. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2018. "Manipulation testing based on density discontinuity," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 18(1), pages 234-261, March.
    5. Brough, Rebecca & Freedman, Matthew & Ho, Daniel E. & Phillips, David C., 2022. "Can transportation subsidies reduce failures to appear in criminal court? Evidence from a pilot randomized controlled trial," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    6. François Gerard & Miikka Rokkanen & Christoph Rothe, 2020. "Bounds on treatment effects in regression discontinuity designs with a manipulated running variable," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), pages 839-870, July.
    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. Singh, Tejendra Pratap, 2024. "The Marshalsea Underwater: Natural Disasters and Legal Debt Defaults," OSF Preprints mygch_v1, Center for Open Science.
    2. Chu, Yu-Wei Luke & Cuffe, Harold E, 2020. "Do Struggling Students Benefit From Continued Student Loan Access? Evidence From University and Beyond," Working Paper Series 21067, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    3. , Jafar & Singh, Tejendra Pratap, 2023. "Peace of Mind: Examining Election-Induced Anxiety among Minorities in India," OSF Preprints hpu5y_v1, Center for Open Science.
    4. , Jafar & Singh, Tejendra Pratap, 2023. "Peace of Mind: Examining Election-Induced Anxiety among Minorities in India," OSF Preprints hpu5y, Center for Open Science.
    5. Henri Bussink & Bas ter Weel, 2022. "Costs and benefits of an Individual Learning Account (ILA): A simulation analysis for the Netherlands," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-077/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Christopher Erwin, 2019. "Low-performing student responses to state merit scholarships," Working Papers 2019-02, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    7. Behrens, Christiaan & de Jong, Gerben & van Ommeren, Jos, 2024. "From silver to platinum: The impact of frequent flier tier levels on air travellers’ behaviour," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    8. Barbara Broadway & Anna Zhu, 2023. "Spatial heterogeneity in welfare reform success," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2023n13, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    9. Jeff DeSimone & Daniel Grossman & Nicolas Ziebarth, 2023. "Regression Discontinuity Evidence on the Effectiveness of the Minimum Legal E-cigarette Purchasing Age," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(3), pages 461-485.
    10. Giesecke, Matthias & Jäger, Philipp, 2021. "Pension incentives and labor supply: Evidence from the introduction of universal old-age assistance in the UK," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    11. Krzysztof Karbownik & Anthony Wray, 2019. "Long-Run Consequences of Exposure to Natural Disasters," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(3), pages 949-1007.
    12. Hızıroğlu Aygün, Aysun & Kırdar, Murat Güray & Koyuncu, Murat & Stoeffler, Quentin, 2024. "Keeping refugee children in school and out of work: Evidence from the world's largest humanitarian cash transfer program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    13. Pelli, Martino & Tschopp, Jeanne & Bezmaternykh, Natalia & Eklou, Kodjovi M., 2023. "In the eye of the storm: Firms and capital destruction in India," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Agustín Indaco & Francesc Ortega & Süleyman Taṣpınar, 2021. "Hurricanes, flood risk and the economic adaptation of businesses," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 557-591.
    15. Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Knott, Rachel & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "Resilience to Disaster: Evidence from Daily Wellbeing Data," IZA Discussion Papers 14220, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Jerch, Rhiannon & Kahn, Matthew E. & Lin, Gary C., 2023. "Local public finance dynamics and hurricane shocks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    17. Fürstenau, Elisabeth & Gohl, Niklas & Haan, Peter & Weinhardt, Felix, 2023. "Working life and human capital investment: Causal evidence from a pension reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Emek Basker & Javier Miranda, 2014. "Taken by Storm: Business Financing, Survival, and Contagion in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," Working Papers 1406, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, revised 23 Oct 2014.
    19. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Mitrou, Francis, 2024. "Natural disasters and the demand for health insurance," MPRA Paper 123055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Gaggero, Alessio & Mesa-Pedrazas, Ángela & Fernández-Pérez, Ángel, 2024. "Shutting down to save lives: A regression discontinuity analysis of non-essential business closure," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    More about this item

    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:osf:osfxxx:mygch. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    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.