Ongoing Projects

We’re Building Something Here: Reducing Gun Violence in Baltimore’s Western District (with Max Kapustin, Cristina Layana, Jeremy Biddle, Brian Wade, Ben Struhl and Anthony Braga)

Improving Police Performance: An Experimental Evaluation of the Policing Leadership Academy (with Dylan Fitzpatrick, Max Kapustin and Anthony Braga)

Re-Visiting the Effect of Vocational Training in Prisons: A Randomized Evaluation of The Last Mile (with Anthony Braga, Ben Struhl, Sarah Tahamont, Britte van Tiem and Laura Mutis)

Can Brighter Street Lighting Reduce Street Crime at Scale?  Evidence from Philadelphia (with Alyssa Mendlein, Maya Moritz, Brian Wade and John MacDonald)


Working Papers

Investments in Policing and Community Safety (draft)
  • Accepted, Annual Review of Criminology​ 

Professional Motivations in the Public Sector: Evidence from Police Officers  (draft)
with Felipe Goncalves
Can Gun Violence Be Deterred at Low Cost? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in New York City (draft)
Did Violence Against Asian-Americans Rise in 2020? Evidence from a Novel Approach to Measuring Racially-Motivated Attacks (draft)
Perils and Pitfalls in the Use of Synthetic Control Methods to Study Public Safety Interventions (draft) ​
Place-Based Approaches to Reducing Violent Crime Hot Spots: A Review of the Evidence on Public Health Approaches

Journal Articles (Refereed)

Understanding Vaccine Hesitancy in U.S. Prisons: Perspectives from a Statewide Survey of Incarcerated People (with Emily Greberman, Erin Kerrison and Jordan Hyatt) Accepted, Vaccines

Does Proactive Policing Really Increase Major Crime? Accounting for an Ecological Fallacy (with David Mitre Becerril and Morgan Williams Jr.​), Accepted, Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (pre-print)

A New Racial Disparity in Traffic Fatalities (with Maxim Massenkoff and Aartik Sarma), Accepted, JAMA: Surgery (pre-print)
  • NBER Working Paper No. 30636​: link

Crime and Disorder Trends Associated with the Introduction of Overdose Prevention Centers in New York City (with Brandon del Pozo and David Mitre Becerril), JAMA: Network Open (link)
Comparing Risks of Firearm-Related Death and Injury Among Young Adult Males in Selected US Cities to Wartime Service in Iraq and Afghanistan (with Brandon del Pozo, Alex Knorre and Michael Mello), JAMA: Network Open (link)
The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Crime Victimization (with Ben Hansen and Rachel Ryley), Forthcoming, Journal of Human Resources ​  (link) 
No Ground Truth? No Problem: Improving Administrative Data Linking Using Active Learning and a Little Bit of Guile (with Sarah Tahamont, Zubin Jelveh, Melissa McNeill, Shi Yan and Ben Hansen), PLos ONE (link)

Activity-Adjusted Crime Rates Show That Public Safety Worsened in 2020 (​with Maxim Massenkoff), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (link)
Can Deterrence Persist? Long-Term Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Street Lighting (with David Mitre Becerril, Jason Lerner and Sarah Tahamont), Criminology & Public Policy (link)

Police Force Size and Civilian Race  (with Ben Hansen, Emily Weisburst and Morgan Williams Jr.​), American Economic Review: Insights (link)
Can Precision Policing Reduce Gun Violence? Evidence from "Gang Takedowns" in New York City (with Mike LaForest and Jacob Kaplan), Journal of Policy Analysis & Management  (link) (pre-print) 
​​Street Light Outages, Public Safety and Crime Attraction (with Jacob Kaplan and Mike LaForest),  Journal of Quantitative Criminology (link)

Reducing Crime Through Environmental Design: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Street Lighting in New York City (with Ben Hansen, Jason Lerner and Lucie Parker), Journal of Quantitative Criminology (link) 
Ambient Lighting, Use of Outdoor Spaces and Perceptions of Public Safety: Evidence from a Survey Experiment (with Jacob Kaplan), Forthcoming, Security Journal (link) (pre-print) 

How Many Complaints Against Police Officers Can Be Abated By Incapacitating a Few "Bad Apples?" (with Jacob Kaplan), Forthcoming, Criminology & Public Policy  (link)​
Testing Public Policy at the Frontier: The Effect of the $15 Minimum Wage on Public Safety in Seattle (with David Mitre Becerril), Forthcoming, Criminology & Public Policy (link)  ​
Measuring Marginal Crime Concentration: A New Solution to an Old Problem  (with Jacob Kaplan and Maria Cuellar), Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency  (link) 

​Dude, Where's My Treatment Effect? Errors in Administrative Data Linking and the Destruction of Statistical Power in Randomized Experiments (with Sarah Tahamont, Zubin Jelveh, Shi Yan and Ben Hansen), Journal of Quantitative Criminology (link)  
  • NBER Working Paper version, formerly titled, "Administrative Data Linking and Statistical Power Problems in Randomized Experiments": link

Immigration Enforcement, Crime and Demography: Evidence from the Arizona Legal Workers Act (with Monica Deza), 
Criminology & Public Policy (link)
More Sneezing, Less Crime? Health Shocks and the Market for Offenses (with Shooshan Danagoulian and Monica Deza), 
Journal of Health Economics (link) 
More Cops, Fewer Prisoners? (with Jacob Kaplan), Criminology & Public Policy  (link) 

The Intergenerational Effect of Education on Delinquency (with Monica Deza), Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (link) 
Are U.S. Cities Underpoliced?: Theory and Evidence (with Justin McCrary), The Review of Economics and Statistics (link) 
Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature (with Justin McCrary), Journal of Economic Literature (link) 

Estimating the Crime Effects of Raising the Age of Majority: Evidence from Connecticut (with Charles Loeffler), Criminology & Public Policy (link) 

Testing Rational Choice Theory Using Individual-Level Panel Data (with Tom Loughran, Ray Paternoster and Theodore Wilson), Criminology (link)

Estimating the Effects of Immigration Enforcement on Local Policing and Crime: Evidence from the Secure Communities Program  (with Charles Loeffler and Elina Treyger), Criminology & Public Policy (link)
What is the Contribution of Immigration to U.S. Crime Rates? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in Mexico, The American Law & Economics Review (link)
What do Panel Studies Tell Us About a Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment? (with Steve Raphael and Amelia Haviland), 
Journal of Quantitative Criminology (link) 

Re-Assessing the Cost of the Death Penalty Using Quasi-Experimental Methods: Evidence from Maryland (with John Roman and Carly Knight), The American Law & Economics Review (link) 

The DNA Field Experiment: A Randomized Trial of the Cost-Effectiveness of Using DNA to Solve Property Crimes (with John Roman, Shannon Reid and Carly Knight), Journal of Experimental Criminology (link)
  • Award for Best-Field Trial, ASC Division of Experimental Criminology
  • Urban Institute's Presidential Award for Best Annual Research Publication

Resting Papers
​​ 
The COVID-19 Pandemic, Domestic Violence and the Riskiness of Alcohol Consumption (draft) 
​with Shooshan Danagoulian and Monica Deza
​
Book Chapters and Non-Refereed Articles

State Policies and Police Personnel Decisions (with Dylan Fitzpatrick and Jens Ludwig), Arnold Ventures Police Accountability Roundtable Discussion Paper (link) 

Capital Punishment Research (with Valentine Gilbert and Lucie Parker), The Encyclopedia of Research Methods and Statistical Techniques in Criminal Justice (link) 

The Effect of Parental Education on Children's Drug and Alcohol Use (with Monica Deza), American Economic Association: Papers & Proceedings (link)

Prisons and Crime Control (with Sarah Tahamont), The Oxford Handbook on Prisons and Imprisonment (link)

Economic Theory (with Sarah Tahamont),  Deterrence, Choice and Crime: Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge Press 

Productivity and Selection of Human Capital with Machine Learning (with Oren Danieli, Andrew Hillis, Zubin Jelveh, Jens Ludwig and Sendhil Mullainathan), American Economic Association: Papers & Proceedings (link)

The Long-Run Effect of Mexican Immigration on Crime in U.S. Cities: Evidence from Variation in Mexican Fertility Rates, American Economic Association: Papers & Proceedings (link)

The Economic Costs of Crime, The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, Wiley Blackwell (Wesley Jennings, editor) (link)

Work and Crime (with Steve Raphael), The Oxford Handbook of Crime and Criminal Justice, Oxford University Press (Michael Tonry, editor)