Microeconometrics of Labor Markets and Criminal Behavior

The subject of the book is to apply microeconometric techniques to labor economics and criminal behavior. Chapter one builds and estimates an econometric model of recidivism for the USA using data set of released prisoners from state prisons in 1983. The chapter extends the literature on the application of econometrics to criminal behavior by treating the process of recidivism as a competing risks model where dependence arises from unobserved heterogeneity. Chapter two evaluates the effect of a reemployment program for ex-convicts on recidivism behavior. The econometric model has to deal with the following institutional aspects of the program. First, upon release, each ex-inmate looks for a job. Second, at the same release-time the ex-criminal could commit a crime, i.e., recidivate. Third, the difference between controls and treatments samples only occurs conditional on finding a job. Hence, the timing of receiving the treatment is random and endogenous. This chapter extends the literature on econometric program evaluation by building and estimating a model that considers the conditional feature of the treatment. The results show that the program helps reduce criminal activity.