IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/jinste/urndoi10.1628-jite-2025-0008.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Importance of Base-Rates in Differential Impact: A Bail Reform Case-Study

Author

Listed:
  • Aurélie Ouss
  • Megan T. Stevenson

Abstract

Researchers commonly seek to understand whether a policy has differential impact on different subgroups, yet the choice of differential impact metric can have a huge effect on interpretation. Commonly used metrics, such as comparing treatment effects in magnitude or as a percentage of the control mean, frequently do not correspond to the question of interest. If the relevant question is how the intervention affected potential beneficiaries of the reform, a different base rate must be used. We demonstrate how to implement a base-rate adjusted impact metric in a difference-in-differences setting using Philadelphia bail reform as an example.

Suggested Citation

  • Aurélie Ouss & Megan T. Stevenson, 2025. "The Importance of Base-Rates in Differential Impact: A Bail Reform Case-Study," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 181(1), pages 139-155.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:doi:10.1628/jite-2025-0008
    DOI: 10.1628/jite-2025-0008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/the-importance-of-base-rates-in-differential-impact-a-bail-reform-case-study-101628jite-2025-0008
    Download Restriction: Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1628/jite-2025-0008?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 search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bail reform; differential impact; racial disparities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    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:mhr:jinste:urn:doi:10.1628/jite-2025-0008. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Thomas Wolpert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/jite .

    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.