We provide a unifying empirical framework to study why crime reductions occurred due to a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. Because the reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, they generate both a short-term incapacitation effect and a more sustained crime-reducing effect. In contrast to previous research looking at earlier US education reforms, we find that reform-induced crime reduction does not arise primarily from education improvements. Decomposing short-and long-run effects, the observed longer-run effect for the post-1980 education reforms is primarily attributed to dynamic incapacitation. ? 2022 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

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1 March 2022

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Journal of Political Economy 130(3) , pp.732-765, 2022

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DOI: 10.1086/717895

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/717895

This Journal article is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.