IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v228y2023ics0165176523001805.html

The economic effects of prison closures on local communities

Author

Listed:
  • Chirakijja, Janjala

Abstract

This study examines the economic impacts of prison closures on local communities in the United States during the early 2010s. Using a difference-in-differences design, my analyses reveal a significant reduction in public-sector employment and a greater impact on low-skilled workers. However, I find little evidence of an adverse spillover effect on private-sector employment. Consequently, the overall implications of prison closures on the broader labor and housing markets are modest.

Suggested Citation

  • Chirakijja, Janjala, 2023. "The economic effects of prison closures on local communities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:228:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523001805
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111155
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176523001805
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111155?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Faggio, Giulia & Overman, Henry, 2014. "The effect of public sector employment on local labour markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 91-107.
    2. Gregory Hooks & Clayton Mosher & Shaun Genter & Thomas Rotolo & Linda Lobao, 2010. "Revisiting the Impact of Prison Building on Job Growth: Education, Incarceration, and County‐Level Employment, 1976–2004," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(1), pages 228-244, March.
    3. Anita Mukherjee, 2021. "Impacts of Private Prison Contracting on Inmate Time Served and Recidivism," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 408-438, May.
    4. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, August.
    5. Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2020. "The Incidence of Local Labor Demand Shocks," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(3), pages 687-725.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sven Resnjanskij & Jens Ruhose & Simon Wiederhold & Ludger Wößmann, 2021. "Mentoring verbessert die Arbeitsmarktchancen von stark benachteiligten Jugendlichen," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 74(02), pages 31-38, February.
    2. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Denis Chetverikov & Christian Hansen & Kengo Kato, 2018. "High-dimensional econometrics and regularized GMM," CeMMAP working papers CWP35/18, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Dimitris Bertsimas & Agni Orfanoudaki & Rory B. Weiner, 2020. "Personalized treatment for coronary artery disease patients: a machine learning approach," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 482-506, December.
    4. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    5. Bonesrønning, Hans & Finseraas, Henning & Hardoy, Ines & Iversen, Jon Marius Vaag & Nyhus, Ole Henning & Opheim, Vibeke & Salvanes, Kari Vea & Sandsør, Astrid Marie Jorde & Schøne, Pål, 2022. "Small-group instruction to improve student performance in mathematics in early grades: Results from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    6. Peydró, José-Luis & Jiménez, Gabriel & Kenan, Huremovic & Moral-Benito, Enrique & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2020. "Production and financial networks in interplay: Crisis evidence from supplier-customer and credit registers," CEPR Discussion Papers 15277, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Ruoxuan Xiong & Allison Koenecke & Michael Powell & Zhu Shen & Joshua T. Vogelstein & Susan Athey, 2021. "Federated Causal Inference in Heterogeneous Observational Data," Papers 2107.11732, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    8. Charlotte Senftleben-König, "undated". "Public Sector Employment and Local Multipliers," BDPEMS Working Papers 2014010, Berlin School of Economics.
    9. Hairu Wang & Yukun Liu & Haiying Zhou, 2025. "Score test for unconfoundedness under a logistic treatment assignment model," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 77(4), pages 517-533, August.
    10. Satarupa Bhattacharjee & Bing Li & Xiao Wu & Lingzhou Xue, 2025. "Doubly robust estimation of causal effects for random object outcomes with continuous treatments," Papers 2506.22754, arXiv.org.
    11. David Rezza Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2019. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Microeconomic Shocks: Beyond Hulten's Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1155-1203, July.
    12. Konrad Menzel, 2021. "Structural Sieves," Papers 2112.01377, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2022.
    13. Cucu, Florin, 2025. "Roads, internal migration and the spatial sorting of U.S. high-skill workers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    14. Jonne Y. Guyt & Arjen van Lin & Kristopher O. Keller, 2025. "Banning Unsolicited Store Flyers: Does Helping the Environment Hurt Retailing?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(5), pages 1104-1124, September.
    15. Furtado, Delia & Kong, Haiyang, 2021. "How Do Low-Skilled Immigrants Adjust to Chinese Import Shocks? Evidence Using English Language Proficiency," IZA Discussion Papers 14152, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Alberto Abadie & Susan Athey & Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2020. "Sampling‐Based versus Design‐Based Uncertainty in Regression Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 265-296, January.
    17. Andrés Elberg & Pedro M. Gardete & Rosario Macera & Carlos Noton, 2019. "Dynamic effects of price promotions: field evidence, consumer search, and supply-side implications," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-58, March.
    18. Davide Viviano & Jelena Bradic, 2019. "Synthetic learner: model-free inference on treatments over time," Papers 1904.01490, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    19. Chenchuan (Mark) Li & Ulrich K. Müller, 2021. "Linear regression with many controls of limited explanatory power," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 405-442, May.
    20. Jeon, Sung-Hee & Pohl, R. Vincent, 2019. "Medical innovation, education, and labor market outcomes of cancer patients," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:228:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523001805. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.