In most countries, parliamentary immunity protects lawmakers from civil or criminal charges while in office, and it shields them from prosecution for their political speech and actions. We present the first empirical analysis of the impact of parliamentary immunity on the behavior and performance of politicians. Leveraging a constitutional amendment that lifted the immunity of 24 percent of the members of the Turkish Parliament (MPs), we find that losing immunity from prosecution pacifies opposition MPs, who become less diligent (drafting and initiating fewer pieces of legislation or inquiries, delivering fewer and shorter speeches) and less aggressive (interrupting other MPs less frequently). Their tendency to cast dissenting votes against the government is also reduced. These MPs are less likely to be renominated by their parties for the next election, and they are less likely to be reelected. The loss of immunity has no impact on government-aligned MPs.
{"title":"Deterrence and Compellence in Parliament","authors":"D. Altindag, N. Mocan, Jie Zhang","doi":"10.1086/722634","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722634","url":null,"abstract":"In most countries, parliamentary immunity protects lawmakers from civil or criminal charges while in office, and it shields them from prosecution for their political speech and actions. We present the first empirical analysis of the impact of parliamentary immunity on the behavior and performance of politicians. Leveraging a constitutional amendment that lifted the immunity of 24 percent of the members of the Turkish Parliament (MPs), we find that losing immunity from prosecution pacifies opposition MPs, who become less diligent (drafting and initiating fewer pieces of legislation or inquiries, delivering fewer and shorter speeches) and less aggressive (interrupting other MPs less frequently). Their tendency to cast dissenting votes against the government is also reduced. These MPs are less likely to be renominated by their parties for the next election, and they are less likely to be reelected. The loss of immunity has no impact on government-aligned MPs.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"7 1","pages":"333 - 368"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91190734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zach Fone, Andrew Friedson, Brandy J. Lipton, Joseph J. Sabia
The Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage mandate (DCM) induced approximately 2 million young adults to join parental employer-sponsored health insurance plans. This study is the first to explore the impact of the DCM on crime, a potentially important externality. Using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, we find that the DCM induced a 2–5 percent reduction in property crime incidents involving young adult arrestees ages 22–25 relative to those ages 27–29. This finding is supported by supplemental analysis using data from the Uniform Crime Reports. An examination of the underlying mechanisms suggests that declines in large out-of-pocket expenditures for health care, increased educational attainment, and increases in cohabitation of parents and adult children may explain these declines in crime. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the DCM generated approximately $371–$512 million in annual social benefits from crime reduction among young adults.
{"title":"Did the Dependent Coverage Mandate Reduce Crime?","authors":"Zach Fone, Andrew Friedson, Brandy J. Lipton, Joseph J. Sabia","doi":"10.1086/722461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722461","url":null,"abstract":"The Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage mandate (DCM) induced approximately 2 million young adults to join parental employer-sponsored health insurance plans. This study is the first to explore the impact of the DCM on crime, a potentially important externality. Using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, we find that the DCM induced a 2–5 percent reduction in property crime incidents involving young adult arrestees ages 22–25 relative to those ages 27–29. This finding is supported by supplemental analysis using data from the Uniform Crime Reports. An examination of the underlying mechanisms suggests that declines in large out-of-pocket expenditures for health care, increased educational attainment, and increases in cohabitation of parents and adult children may explain these declines in crime. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the DCM generated approximately $371–$512 million in annual social benefits from crime reduction among young adults.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"126 1","pages":"143 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84389896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We estimate the impact of deregulating shop hours on the structure of the retail sector and the size and composition of its labor force. To identify the effect of interest, we exploit the staggered implementation of a reform that allowed Italian municipalities to adopt fully flexible operating hours in the late 1990s. Our findings indicate that lifting restrictions on hours increased retail employment by 2.4 percent and increased the number of shops in the affected municipalities by 1.8 percent. In combination with estimates using individual-level data, our results further suggest that retail employment grew more in larger retail operations, with a corresponding movement of the labor force toward permanent employees and away from the self-employed.
{"title":"The Effects of Deregulating Retail Operating Hours: Empirical Evidence from Italy","authors":"L. Rizzica, Giacomo Roma, Gabriele Rovigatti","doi":"10.1086/722476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722476","url":null,"abstract":"We estimate the impact of deregulating shop hours on the structure of the retail sector and the size and composition of its labor force. To identify the effect of interest, we exploit the staggered implementation of a reform that allowed Italian municipalities to adopt fully flexible operating hours in the late 1990s. Our findings indicate that lifting restrictions on hours increased retail employment by 2.4 percent and increased the number of shops in the affected municipalities by 1.8 percent. In combination with estimates using individual-level data, our results further suggest that retail employment grew more in larger retail operations, with a corresponding movement of the labor force toward permanent employees and away from the self-employed.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"58 1","pages":"21 - 52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91543485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The initiative and referendum were intended to curtail the power of organized interest groups, yet business groups account for more spending on ballot measures than any other group by far. Does this mean that direct democracy has become a tool for corporations to buy favorable legislation? This paper reports four types of evidence suggesting that the answer is no: analysis of the content of the universe of state-level initiatives in the United States from 1904 to 2021 shows that antibusiness initiatives were more common than probusiness initiatives, analysis of contribution patterns for California ballot measures from 2000 to 2020 shows that business groups more often opposed than supported initiatives, abnormal stock returns on election days show that corporate contributors earned positive abnormal returns when initiatives failed and negative abnormal returns when they passed, and for all three types of evidence business groups fared better with ballot measures proposed by legislatures. I find similar results for unions.
{"title":"Is Direct Democracy Good or Bad for Corporations and Unions?","authors":"J. Matsusaka","doi":"10.1086/722391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722391","url":null,"abstract":"The initiative and referendum were intended to curtail the power of organized interest groups, yet business groups account for more spending on ballot measures than any other group by far. Does this mean that direct democracy has become a tool for corporations to buy favorable legislation? This paper reports four types of evidence suggesting that the answer is no: analysis of the content of the universe of state-level initiatives in the United States from 1904 to 2021 shows that antibusiness initiatives were more common than probusiness initiatives, analysis of contribution patterns for California ballot measures from 2000 to 2020 shows that business groups more often opposed than supported initiatives, abnormal stock returns on election days show that corporate contributors earned positive abnormal returns when initiatives failed and negative abnormal returns when they passed, and for all three types of evidence business groups fared better with ballot measures proposed by legislatures. I find similar results for unions.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"16 1","pages":"83 - 110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78454615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Securities class actions are among the most controversial topics in the corporate and securities law literature, but despite these actions’ significance, little is known about the impact of their introduction into the legal system. This paper contributes to filling this gap by examining the capital market effects of the adoption of private rights of action (PRAs) in the United Kingdom—a jurisdiction that provides a unique empirical setting for the analysis. The results indicate that the introduction of the rights was associated with enhanced market liquidity and value. Although this finding is most directly relevant to the cost-benefit analysis of private litigation in the United Kingdom, it also suggests that eliminating PRAs in jurisdictions that have adopted them (a reform that has been proposed in the United States) may lead to lower liquidity and market value.
{"title":"The Capital Market Effects of Introducing Private Rights of Action in Securities Regulation: Evidence from the United Kingdom","authors":"Fernán Restrepo","doi":"10.1086/723789","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723789","url":null,"abstract":"Securities class actions are among the most controversial topics in the corporate and securities law literature, but despite these actions’ significance, little is known about the impact of their introduction into the legal system. This paper contributes to filling this gap by examining the capital market effects of the adoption of private rights of action (PRAs) in the United Kingdom—a jurisdiction that provides a unique empirical setting for the analysis. The results indicate that the introduction of the rights was associated with enhanced market liquidity and value. Although this finding is most directly relevant to the cost-benefit analysis of private litigation in the United Kingdom, it also suggests that eliminating PRAs in jurisdictions that have adopted them (a reform that has been proposed in the United States) may lead to lower liquidity and market value.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"13 1","pages":"183 - 224"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75650662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We estimate the effect of cash usage on crime by exploiting a change in law in the Uruguayan capital that banned cash payments in gas stations at night. We use georeferenced crime data that allow for precise measurement of crime rates in radii around gas stations and radii around shops and other areas that were not included in the cash ban. The cash ban caused a decline of 25 percent or more in robberies in the treated areas. The effect is not observed for robberies near gas stations during daytime hours when the ban was not in effect or for crimes not motivated by cash, such as domestic violence. We find no evidence that robberies were displaced to other times or areas. Repeating our study aggregating to the neighborhood attenuates the causal effect, which may explain the lower estimates from less precise data in previous literature.
{"title":"Does Paying with Cards Reduce Crime at Stores? Evidence from a Targeted Cash Ban in Uruguay","authors":"Néstor Gandelman, Ignacio Munyo, Emanuel Schertz","doi":"10.1086/721910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721910","url":null,"abstract":"We estimate the effect of cash usage on crime by exploiting a change in law in the Uruguayan capital that banned cash payments in gas stations at night. We use georeferenced crime data that allow for precise measurement of crime rates in radii around gas stations and radii around shops and other areas that were not included in the cash ban. The cash ban caused a decline of 25 percent or more in robberies in the treated areas. The effect is not observed for robberies near gas stations during daytime hours when the ban was not in effect or for crimes not motivated by cash, such as domestic violence. We find no evidence that robberies were displaced to other times or areas. Repeating our study aggregating to the neighborhood attenuates the causal effect, which may explain the lower estimates from less precise data in previous literature.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"8 1","pages":"1 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84187654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We analyze how new information about the validity of a patent impacts the settlement of patent infringement litigation. A party accused of patent infringement in the United States may—in parallel with defending itself in court—challenge the validity of the allegedly infringed patent by petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), an administrative tribunal in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Review by PTAB generates new information about the validity of challenged patents, and we study empirically the resulting effect on settlement of an accused infringer’s decision to file a petition to challenge a patent’s validity and, conditional on the filing of a petition, the PTAB’s initial decision to grant or deny the petition on the basis of its assessment of a reasonable likelihood of invalidity. We find that both decision points have large, positive effects on the settlement of parallel court proceedings.
{"title":"Patent Validity and Litigation: Evidence from US Inter Partes Review","authors":"C. Helmers, B. Love","doi":"10.1086/721911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721911","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze how new information about the validity of a patent impacts the settlement of patent infringement litigation. A party accused of patent infringement in the United States may—in parallel with defending itself in court—challenge the validity of the allegedly infringed patent by petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), an administrative tribunal in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Review by PTAB generates new information about the validity of challenged patents, and we study empirically the resulting effect on settlement of an accused infringer’s decision to file a petition to challenge a patent’s validity and, conditional on the filing of a petition, the PTAB’s initial decision to grant or deny the petition on the basis of its assessment of a reasonable likelihood of invalidity. We find that both decision points have large, positive effects on the settlement of parallel court proceedings.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"21 1","pages":"53 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87028067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The growth of large digital platforms has caused some observers to claim that merger policy has been too lax to protect consumer welfare, stating a predicate for antitrust policy reform. We address this by exploring the relative importance of past mergers to the current value of the five largest platforms (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft). We find that mergers have not been as important to these platforms’ size compared with other large technology companies. Even so, it could be argued that the mergers engaged in by these platforms have harmed efficiency. Listing the combinations often used to advance this view, we find that such mergers cited by reform advocates have often been associated with competitive or benign outcomes rather than with adverse effects associated with creation of a monopoly. Further analysis (and government litigation) will likely inform this perspective.
{"title":"Antitrust in the Information Economy: Digital Platform Mergers","authors":"R. Crandall, T. Hazlett","doi":"10.1086/721487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721487","url":null,"abstract":"The growth of large digital platforms has caused some observers to claim that merger policy has been too lax to protect consumer welfare, stating a predicate for antitrust policy reform. We address this by exploring the relative importance of past mergers to the current value of the five largest platforms (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft). We find that mergers have not been as important to these platforms’ size compared with other large technology companies. Even so, it could be argued that the mergers engaged in by these platforms have harmed efficiency. Listing the combinations often used to advance this view, we find that such mergers cited by reform advocates have often been associated with competitive or benign outcomes rather than with adverse effects associated with creation of a monopoly. Further analysis (and government litigation) will likely inform this perspective.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"146 1","pages":"S499 - S518"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79625864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We identify a causal effect of the liberalization and prohibition of commercial sex on rape rates, using staggered legislative changes in European countries. Liberalizing prostitution leads to a significant decrease in rape rates, while prohibiting it leads to a significant increase. The results are stronger when rape is less severely underreported and when it is more difficult for men to obtain sex via marriage or partnership. We also provide the first evidence for the asymmetric effect of prostitution regulation on rape rates: the magnitude of prostitution prohibition is much larger than that of prostitution liberalization. Placebo tests show that prostitution laws have no impact on nonsexual crimes. Overall, our results indicate that prostitution is a substitute for sexual violence and that the recent global trend of prohibiting commercial sex (especially the Nordic model) could have the unforeseen consequence of proliferating sexual violence. If you expel prostitutes from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts. (St. Augustine, in Richards 1995, p. 118)1 If you expel prostitutes from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts. (St. Augustine, in Richards 1995, p. 118)1
{"title":"Do Prostitution Laws Affect Rape Rates? Evidence from Europe","authors":"Huasheng Gao, V. Petrova","doi":"10.1086/720583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/720583","url":null,"abstract":"We identify a causal effect of the liberalization and prohibition of commercial sex on rape rates, using staggered legislative changes in European countries. Liberalizing prostitution leads to a significant decrease in rape rates, while prohibiting it leads to a significant increase. The results are stronger when rape is less severely underreported and when it is more difficult for men to obtain sex via marriage or partnership. We also provide the first evidence for the asymmetric effect of prostitution regulation on rape rates: the magnitude of prostitution prohibition is much larger than that of prostitution liberalization. Placebo tests show that prostitution laws have no impact on nonsexual crimes. Overall, our results indicate that prostitution is a substitute for sexual violence and that the recent global trend of prohibiting commercial sex (especially the Nordic model) could have the unforeseen consequence of proliferating sexual violence. If you expel prostitutes from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts. (St. Augustine, in Richards 1995, p. 118)1 If you expel prostitutes from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts. (St. Augustine, in Richards 1995, p. 118)1","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"30 1","pages":"753 - 789"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84438640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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