Law and Economics Commons^™

Empirical Evaluation Of Law: The Dream And The Nightmare, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Newtown Shooting One Year Later, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

One year has passed since the horrific Newtown school shooting of December 14, 2012, and we have likely learned all that will be known about the tragic events of that day. As we reflect back on the event and the subsequent political and legislative responses, a few points should be noted.

The Death Penalty, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

A system of punishment involving the execution of individuals convicted of a capital crime.

The issue of the death penalty has been an area of enormous academic and political ferment in the United States over the last forty years, with the country flirting with abolition in the 1970s, followed by a period of renewed use of the death penalty, and then a period of retrenchment, reflected in a declining number of death sentences and executions and a recent trend leading six states to abolish the death penalty in the last six years. Internationally, there is a steady movement away from …

Outlier Nation: Homicides, Incarceration, Guns And Gun Culture, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

The killing of 20 children and 6 teachers at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut has shaken the nation enough so that the issue of how to combat America’s unusual level of gun violence is now on the agenda for the first time in almost two decades. In 1994, President Clinton succeeded in getting two major gun control measures: 1) a national background check program that was designed to keep guns away from felons and the mentally ill, and 2) a ban on the type of “assault weapons” used by Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter. Unfortunately, the National Rifle Association …

Do Police Reduce Crime? A Reexamination Of A Natural Experiment, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

We reexamine a natural experiment first studied by Di Tella and Schargrodsky (2004, “DS”). In response to a 1994 terrorist attack against a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, the government implemented 24-hour police surveillance on city blocks with Jewish institutions. Using a control group of blocks without Jewish institutions, DS applied difference-in-differences, finding that increased policing substantially reduced car theft. We explain how the reallocation of police resources from unprotected to protected blocks, shifts in criminal activity to avoid 24-hour police patrols, and a parking prohibition on protected blocks undermine the original design. The intervention may have displaced, rather …

Book Review - Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Law, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

Book Review - Forbidden Grounds: The case against employment discrimination law by Richard A. Epstein. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press 1992

Law And Macroeconomics: Employment Discrimination Litigation Over The Business Cycle, John J. Donohue, Peter Siegelman

John Donohue

For the past two decades the law and economics movement has been one of the most influential forces in the legal academy. Its practitioners have relentlessly sought to unleash microeconomic insights on formerly pristine areas of legal doctrine. This Article focuses on a branch of law - employment discrimination-that has already been examined from a microeconomic perspective. However, it represents a departure from the previous literature in that it considers the impact of macroeconomic phenomena on several aspects of employment discrimination litigation.