IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death

Author

Listed:
  • Isaac Ehrlich

Abstract

The debate over the legitimacy or propriety of the death penalty may be almost as old as the death penalty itself and, in the view of the increasing trend towards its complete abolition, perhaps as outdated. Not surprisingly, and as is generally recognized by contemporary writers on this topic, the philosophical and moral arguments for or against the death penalty have remained remarkably unchanged since the beginning of the debate. One outstanding issue has become, however, the subject of increased investigation, especially in recent years, due to its objective nature and the dominant role it has played in shaping the analytical and practical case against the death penalty. That issue is the deterrent effect of capital punishment, a reexamination of which, in both theory and practice, is the object of the paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaac Ehrlich, 1973. "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death," NBER Working Papers 0018, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0018.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fair, Ray C, 1970. "The Estimation of Simultaneous Equation Models with Lagged Endogenous Variables and First Order Serially Correlated Errors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 507-516, May.
    2. Ehrlich, Isaac & Becker, Gary S, 1972. "Market Insurance, Self-Insurance, and Self-Protection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(4), pages 623-648, July-Aug..
    3. Hochman, Harold M & Rodgers, James D, 1969. "Pareto Optimal Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(4), pages 542-557, Part I Se.
    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. Haltiwanger, John & Waldman, Michael, 1993. "The role of altruism in economic interaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-15, May.
    2. Thomas A. Husted, 1990. "Micro-Based Examination of the Demand for Income-Redistribution Benefits," Public Finance Review, , vol. 18(2), pages 157-181, April.
    3. Vijlbrief, J.A., 1992. "Equity and efficiency in unemployment insurance," Serie Research Memoranda 0014, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    4. Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 1984. "Externalities, Heterogeneity and the Optimal Distribution of Public Programs: Child Health and Family Planning Interventions," Bulletins 8435, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    5. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    6. Allen, W. David, 2013. "Self-protection against crime victimization: Theory and evidence from university campuses," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 21-33.
    7. Soriano, Ma. Cecilia G., 1990. "Classifying the Economy into Traded or Nontraded Sectors," Philippine Journal of Development JPD 1990 Vol. XVII No. 2-, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    8. Heyes, Anthony & Rickman, Neil & Tzavara, Dionisia, 2004. "Legal expenses insurance, risk aversion and litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 107-119, March.
    9. Drakopoulos, Stavros A., 2008. "The Concept Of Comparison Income: An Historical Perspective," MPRA Paper 8713, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Cebula, Richard, 1973. "Interstate Migration and the Tiebout Hypothesis: An Analysis According to Race, Sex, and Age," MPRA Paper 49827, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Feb 1974.
    11. Agarwal, Sumit & Satyanarain, Rengarajan & Sing, Tien Foo & Vollmer, Derek, 2016. "Effects of construction activities on residential electricity consumption: Evidence from Singapore's public housing estates," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 101-111.
    12. Ehrlich, Isaac & Yin, Yong, 2018. "The problem of the uninsured," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 147-168.
    13. Glazer, Amihai & Konrad, Kai A., 1993. "Ameliorating congestion by income redistribution," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 579-584, November.
    14. Zhang, Bo & Zhou, Peng, 2021. "Financial development and economic growth in a microfounded small open economy model," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    15. Dennis Mueller, 1998. "Constitutional Constraints on Governments in a Global Economy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 171-186, September.
    16. Birdsall, Nancy & James, Estelle, 1992. "Health, government, and the poor : the case for the private sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 938, The World Bank.
    17. Stephen Drinkwater & Colin Jennings, 2007. "Who are the expressive voters?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 179-189, July.
    18. Berthold, Norbert & Neumann, Michael, 2006. "Europas Sozialstaaten im Schatten der Globalisierung," Discussion Paper Series 88, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    19. Louis Eeckhoudt & Philippe Godfroid, 1998. "The market value of preventive activities: A contingent-claims approach," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 27-38, February.
    20. Antràs Pol, 2004. "Is the U.S. Aggregate Production Function Cobb-Douglas? New Estimates of the Elasticity of Substitution," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, April.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0018. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.